VICTORIA - B.C. Finance Minister Carole Taylor says the government has no answers yet on how to the fund its ambitious green plan and there won't be any special measures in this year's budget to get the plan rolling.
"Every budget has had dollars going towards the environment. . . We don't have the answers yet from this action plan that the premier has laid out," Taylor said in an interview. Her statement prompted the NDP opposition to cry foul.
"Good grief," said NDP Leader Carol James.
"I find that incredible and I have to say outrageous. . . If there's no money coming in the budget then it shows that it was put together quickly, that they didn't have a plan for carrying it out and that they're now going to try and figure that out."
The plan - the most ambitious in Canada - aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the province by a third by 2020. By 2016, the province is to be electricity self-sufficient and all electricity produced by then must have "net zero" greenhouse gas emissions.
Interim targets are to be reached following consultations with experts, a panel that will be led by Premier Gordon Campbell.
Campbell has said the climate change issue came into sharp focus for him during his trip in November to a smog-choked Beijing.
By November, a provincial budget is almost completely compiled.
Taylor made no apologies for the lack of green action in this year's budget.
Campbell "very clearly said that this is going to take some time to work out what the targets are," she said.
"We've got to do consultations and I would say it's a pretty good guess that after that work of the secretariat happens over the next year, that you will probably by next budget be able to make some pretty big decisions."
Environmental groups applauded the throne speech when it came out, but Lisa Matthaus, spokeswoman of the Sierra Club B.C. , said Friday she's disappointed hard action on the B.C. plan won't be forthcoming in this year's budget.
"The throne speech was clear that there's no room for procrastination. It would be disappointing if lack of funding was used as an excuse for delay when government is sitting on a multi-billion dollar surplus."
James said without money to back up the claims in the throne speech, Campbell's plan appears to be nothing more than an effort to garner good public relations at a time when climate change is among the top priorities of Canadians.
In the weeks before the B.C. legislature resumed, the NDP had said they would be using British Columbia's inaction on the environment as a theme.
But after the throne speech Tuesday, the NDP said nothing on the topic during question period.
James said Friday that Taylor's statements prove the government's green plan was simply a response to political pressure.
"If the government was really committed to climate change, they would have figured out even an interim budget for this coming year," she said.
Taylor said there are still a lot of unknowns in the green plan, including how much it will cost and where the government needs to put money to fund green projects.
"One thing I particularly liked about the throne speech was the way it was a very calm assertion of the work that has to be done, especially in the next year, as we decide what those short-term targets will be. How we'll get there. How we'll work with business to do it. But that will be work for next year's budget."
For this year, the budget will focus on other measures, including an already-announced jump in health-care funding.
As has been the case for the past three years, the books in B.C. will show a surplus, the finance minister said.
