You’ll forgive our B.C. office for taking a moment to celebrate a victory today – the B.C. government has decided to scrap the loathed Pacific Carbon Trust.

While we would like the BC Liberals to go a step further and scrap the practice of government agencies buying carbon credits all together, this is still a significant step forward, saving taxpayers $5.6 million annually. From our press release yesterday:

“This is a huge step forward for the government – acknowledging that one of its own creations was hopelessly flawed,” said Jordan Bateman, the B.C. Director of the CTF. “Over the past five years, the PCT has taken money from frontline government services like schools and hospitals, wasted millions in bureaucracy, and spent the rest on corporate welfare for some of B.C.’s biggest companies.”

The CTF has been calling on government to kill the Pacific Carbon Trust for years through op-eds, advocacy work, and three provincial budget presentations. Earlier this year, the B.C. auditor general reviewed the PCT and reinforced the CTF’s position that the PCT was a sham.

Despite the news today, there is still more work to be done, Bateman noted. The CTF wants the legislation forcing school boards, health authorities, universities, colleges and other government agencies to buy carbon credits to be repealed.

“Who in their right mind considers a school or hospital a polluter?” questioned Bateman. “Taxpayers are spending millions on buying carbon credits for these facilities rather than providing frontline services.”

For example, Surrey School District spent $525,952 in PCT credits last year, and Interior Health spent $1.24 million.

How active were we in this fight. Well, check out this line in today’s column from Vaughn Palmer: 

Jordan Bateman of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation was on the cost-cutter equivalent of a mission from God to get rid of it.

Mission accomplished. On to the next battle!