Matt Horne, Director of British Columbia Energy Solutions for the Pembina Institute, made the following statement in response to the British Columbia budget tabled today:
"The province missed an opportunity to continue building British Columbia's green economy in today's provincial budget. Instead of enhancing efforts to encourage greener choices and investments, the budget sends mixed signals on the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and maintains a reliance on unpredictable fossil fuel resource revenues.
"The new Harmonized Sales Tax provided the biggest new opportunity. Using HST exemptions to support families makes sense, but unfortunately many of the proposed exemptions will also increase energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. For example, offering HST exemptions for residential energy use dampens the signal for families to make their homes more energy efficient.
"To support a green economic renewal, all of the dollars supporting those exemptions should align with the province's climate action and green economy agendas. We should be using scarce resources to renew and expand programs like LiveSmart. These types of investments would make solar panels, efficient furnaces, and electric vehicles more affordable, as opposed to subsidizing natural gas and gasoline consumption."
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The Pembina Institute is a non-partisan sustainable energy think tank.
For more information, contact:
Matt Horne
Director, British Columbia Energy Solutions Program
The Pembina Institute
Cell: 778-235-1476
matth@pembina.org