NDP backtracks on carbon tax, opposition to IPPs
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 and is filed under Industry News.
B.C. New Democrats are backing away from their opposition to the government’s carbon tax and their call for an immediate moratorium on independent power projects (IPPs).
Premier Gordon Campbell couldn’t be more pleased by the decision announced by NDP Leader Carole James on Thursday.
“I think Ms. James is now trying to repair a party that was badly damaged by the fact they were expedient instead of principled,” the premier said Friday. “But they have been the most anti-environmental political party in the country.”
James said Friday the party’s “job is to make that tax more effective and more fair.”
Rob Fleming, the NDP’s environment critic, refused to use the word “moratorium” when asked several times by reporters at the legislature on Friday about the party’s stand on IPPs, instead calling for a more thorough environmental review of the controversial projects.
“There are all kinds of renewable energy applications in British Columbia right now, and I think some of them are very interesting,” he told reporters at the legislature.
