NDP would scrap Pacific Carbon Trust, use cash for other environmental plans

KAMLOOPS, B.C. – NDP Leader Adrian Dix would recycle the Pacific Carbon Trust if a New Democrat government is elected on May 14.

Dix made the environmental announcement in a Kamloops park, in the same riding where Liberal Environment Minister Terry Lake is seeking re-election.

The NDP Leader says he would dissolve the Carbon Trust and use some of the carbon tax revenue to fund transit or other green initiatives.

Dix says schools, hospitals and other public institutions have paid tens of millions of dollars in carbon tax levies and the Liberal government has gifted most of that cash to profitable corporations.

And in his strongest statement yet against the proposed twinning of the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline, Dix says he doesn’t believe B.C. residents want to turn Vancouver into a major oil exporting port.

The NDP leader says the cost of the environmental plan is $36 million over this fiscal year, rising to $60 million by 2015-16, pushing the party’s total new spending this year to $238-million, and $739-million by 2015-16.