If a Liberal government won't accept B.C.'s Auditor General John Doyle's criticisms of the Pacific Carbon Trust, an NDP government will, says NDP leader Adrian Dix, who vowed Monday to dissolve the controversial Crown corporation.
Dix also took the opportunity of Earth Day to firm up his party's opposition to the pipelines proposed by Enbridge and Kinder Morgan.
In a highly damning report released at the end of March, Doyle confirmed many of the criticisms over the PCT that Business in Vancouver and a number of other news organizations have made since it was implemented in 2008.
The Liberal government dismissed Doyle's report, saying it fundamentally disagreed with his conclusion that the government could not claim to have achieved carbon neutrality since the offset it has invested in a number of projects were not credible.
"Auditor General John Doyle expressed serious concerns about the role and accountability of the Pacific Carbon Trust," said Dix. "We will act on his concerns and end this waste of public money by the B.C. Liberals."
The PCT was set up as part of the B.C. government's climate change action policies. The government requires all public bodies – including Crown corporations, schools, hospitals, municipalities and universities – to become carbon neutral.
Those that have failed to do have been forced to buy offsets from the PCT. The Surrey School District alone has been forced to pay $500,000 a year.
To date, more than $50 million has been collected from public bodies and about half of that has been dished out to private corporations for emissions reduction projects that have been called into question because they appear to fail the additionality test (only projects that would otherwise not proceed due to financial or technical challenges pass this test).
In addition to dissolving the PCT, Dix promised his government would redirect the money paid by hospitals, school districts and other crown corporations would be directed back to those sectors to fund energy-efficiency upgrades.
It's not clear where the money would come from, since most of it has been spent, although Dix said and NDP government would use carbon tax revenue to invest in things like public transit, energy retrofits and "green infrastructure." Currently, the carbon tax is revenue neutral, offset by credits elsewhere.
"The BC Liberals have given up on climate change and failed to use the money raised through a carbon tax to fund green initiatives," said Dix. "We will invest $120 million over the next three years to fight climate change in both urban and rural areas."
Dix also reaffirmed his opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline. And according to the Canadian Press, Dix also said while campaigning in Kamloops that he thinks Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline twinning is not a good fit for Vancouver's environmental and economic needs.
Dix reiterated his plans to have B.C. withdraw from the ongoing Joint Review panel process that is reviewing the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal and opt for a made-in-B.C. process.
"We would withdraw from the Equivalency Agreement and set up a rigorous made-in-BC environmental assessment process," he said.
