Paul Willcocks, one of BC’s most thoughtful columnists, is leaving the Victoria Times Colonist and moving to Honduras shortly. Willcocks has been a fixture in the provincial capital, and his pieces were always well-researched, intelligent, often maddening, and worth reading. He’ll be missed.

On his way out, Willcocks wrote about a great opportunity for the BC Government to save $47 million—the Children’s Education Fund. From his Dec. 22 column:

But this year the government is committing $47 million to the Children’s Education Fund, a shoddy piece of public policy that came out of nowhere in 2006 when Campbell needed something cool to announce at the Liberal convention in Penticton.

Campbell said the government would commit $1,000 for every baby born after that year to the education fund. Beginning in 2025, every teen graduating from high school would get the $1,000, plus interest — perhaps about $2,200.

It’s one of those silly ideas that makes sense as a short-term political gimmick when people are tossing around ideas in the premier’s office, but serves no real long-term purpose.

There’s no logical basis for the government to decide that a tuition subsidy for students starting school in 2025 is a priority today — more important than caring for the disabled, improving health care or offering a tax cut to encourage employment growth.

In fact, the notion that the government can predict the needs of students two decades in the future is dubious.

Imagine the outgoing Socreds trying to come up with a tuition plan that would work for students in 2011.

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We’re talking about serious money. The program started in 2007; by the end of this year the available money in the fund is expected to have reached $230 million.

By 2025, the government will have stashed more than $1 billion in the fund.

The money isn’t counted as an expense in the current budget year. It’s counted as an investment, with the interest showing up on the books as revenue each year. The actual expense will show up on the government books when the payouts begin in 2025. (A development that might not thrill the government, or the taxpayers, of the day, saddled with an expense by a long-gone predecessor.)

It’s interesting that the Liberals don’t talk about the fund anymore. It’s like they realize it makes little sense, but haven’t quite figured out what to do about it. So they just keep committing more than $40 million a year to poor policy.

So there’s some free advice for Clark. Announce the fund is no longer a priority in the wake of the economic slowdown. Allocate the money to CLBC, or some other useful measure.

And take care in future to avoid such poor policy gimmicks.

Hard to argue with Willcocks on this one. This program doesn’t even take into account a family’s financial situation, meaning children of billionaires will be eligible for the same tax subsidy as the offspring of a single mom working two jobs to scrape by. It’s wrong-headed, wasteful and should be cut.

Thanks for this one, Paul… you can bet we will be pointing this program out to the government until they dump it. Be safe, and have fun in Honduras.