No more teachers, no more books--no more greenies’ dirty looks?

British Columbia’s School Districts have been forced to pay the Pacific Carbon Trust more than $4.4 million in carbon credits, according to this recent Vancouver Sun op/ed by Geoff Johnson, a retired Superintendent of Schools.

That’s $4.4 million of your hard-earned tax dollars siphoned out of the classroom and into the pockets of the PCT, a fully-owned BC Government Crown Corporation. The PCT then spends those tax dollars on projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by small, struggling companies like Encana, Interfor, Intrawest, Canfor, the Whistler Pan Pacific Mountainside, and the Whistler Westin. Huh?

According to PCT’s own numbers, 776,026 of the 783,816 tonnes of carbon dioxide credits came from government agencies—your tax dollars. That’s 99% of the total work done (Note: only two private individuals bought credits, for a grand total of 11 credits). At the going rate of $25 a tonne, government agencies contribute $19.4 million to the PCT.

And more will come next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and on and on. I’d complain to the BC Auditor General, but then that office would need to buy more carbon offsets to deal with the carbon dioxide generated by my complaint.

Here’s a way to save taxpayers some money: dissolve the PCT, release government agencies from BC’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act, and return that $19.4 million to the pockets of BC taxpayers.