It looks like the BC government is beginning to listen to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, environmental groups, school boards and health authorities, and are looking at changes to the much-loathed Pacific Carbon Trust.

The PCT, as you may recall, is a wholly-owned BC government agency that theoretically allows people, businesses, government agencies to become carbon neutral by buying carbon credits.

As first blogged here, 776,026 of the 783,816 tonnes of carbon dioxide credits purchased came from government agencies—your tax dollars. That’s 99% of the total work done. At the going rate of $25 a tonne, government agencies contribute $19.4 million to the PCT.  That number includes $4.4 million from school districts!

Those tax dollars were then “reinvested” in shameless corporate welfare/greenwashing with beneficiaries such Encana, Interfor, Intrawest, Canfor, Lafarge, TimberWest, the Whistler Pan Pacific Mountainside, and the Whistler Westin. 

The program is so bad that even noted environmentalists oppose the PCT.

Now BC Environment Minister Terry Lake is pondering changes, writes Black Press columnist Tom Fletcher:

"I think the principles are correct, but the implementation needs to be worked on," Lake said in an interview Monday. "I think people would prefer that when we see public institutions putting money into the Pacific Carbon Trust for instance, that there should be a direct correlation coming back to those organizations to help them reduce their carbon footprint… I'm not sure where we'll end up with it, but I think generally what we'll see is some sort of fund within the Pacific Carbon Trust that's dedicated to schools, to hospitals, so that money comes back to them to help reduce their carbon footprint.”

Actually, Minister, we’d prefer you simply not bother. In this post-HST BC, government needs to re-examine every single line item in their budget in order to get BC back in black. And the PCT is a perfect place to start cutting. Let these ministries and government organizations do their own work, without worrying about the guise of carbon neutrality.

Making a hospital apply for a piece of its own budget for a new furnace (for example) is just wasteful paper shuffling and pointless bureaucracy.

Minister, save taxpayers the time, trouble and money, and scrap the Pacific Carbon Trust.