The "Greenhouse Gas…

The "Greenhouse Gas Reduction Account" was established in 2016 as a repository for government revenues from its Cap and Trade programme. By law, every dollar collected through cap and trade was to be invested – in a transparent way – back into projects that reduce greenhouse gas pollution, such as: public transit; electric vehicle incentives; social housing retrofits.

Bill 4 proposes to repurpose the funds in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Account (currently estimated at $1 billion) away from the purpose for which they were collected (GHG pollution reduction) and spend it on the new government's costs of winding down Cap and Trade. Indeed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Account is to be transmogrified into the "Cap and Trade Wind Down Account".

The following proposed "authorized expenditures" from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Account do not conform with the purpose for which funds were collected:
Section 11 (2) Crown costs of winding down the Cap and Trade programme (subsections 1, 3, 4) and compensating participants for credits which they can no longer use (subsection 7);
Section 11 (2) Crown costs which thwart the purpose for the GHG Reduction Account (subsections 5, 6);
and by extension, Section 11 (2) subsection 8 which covers unspecified Crown costs related to any of the above purposes.

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Account should be left intact until the new government issues its own GHG reduction plan and then used to fund GHG reduction projects.