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Press Pass: Emissions bill puts ministers on the line

FINE ’EM HIGH — One of the things missing from the nine-year-old law that dictates lower greenhouse gas emissions in B.C. is any penalty if the targets are missed. If B.C.
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Andrew Weaver: Private member's bill to lower voting age to 16.

FINE ’EM HIGH — One of the things missing from the nine-year-old law that dictates lower greenhouse gas emissions in B.C. is any penalty if the targets are missed. If B.C. arrives at 2020 and the emissions aren’t 33 per cent below 2007 levels, not much of anything will happen.

Independent MLA Vicki Huntington introduced a bill last week that would change that: It would fine cabinet ministers if the target is missed. She said there needs to be consequences so that failing to reach emission targets is no longer an option.

Cabinet ministers already get dinged five per cent of their salary if their ministries don’t balance their budgets. And if the carbon tax ever loses its revenue neutrality, meaning it produces more revenue than is offset by cuts in other taxes, the minister responsible is liable for a salary hit as well.

Huntington wants the same principle applied to emissions, to ensure government representatives would face financial penalty for missing the required emission reductions. Their salaries would be cut in proportion equal to the emissions target missed.

Many believe meeting the targets is hopeless, as the first day of reckoning is just four years away. One problem with Huntington’s bill — which won’t ever be passed — is that it would fine whoever is in cabinet in 2020, rather than the lineup of ministers over the 14 years leading up to the first target date.

STEAMED WEAVER — Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver was still stewing two days after the NDP curbed debate of the premier’s budget. The Oak Bay-Gordon Head MLA was initially miffed at the NDP for cutting him out of the debate on Wednesday.

But, by Friday, he was just as mad at Opposition house leader Mike Farnworth for suggesting that the Green leader never asked to enter the debate.

Weaver said that’s a fallacy. His office had been in contact with Farnworth’s and arranged to speak on the premier’s estimates early Thursday, Weaver said.

“I am surprised that Mike would suggest otherwise,” he said. “Sure, I didn’t talk to Mike. But that is not the way it’s normally done. … Shame on you, Mike.”

SWEET SIXTEEN — When he wasn’t sparring with the Opposition, Weaver was introducing a private member’s bill that would lower the voter age to 16.

“There’s ample evidence to suggest that the earlier in life a voter casts their first ballot, the more likely they are to develop voting as a habit throughout their life,” he told the legislature. “It’s also a common misconception that 16-year-olds are not as informed and engaged in political issues as older voters. The available research, however, suggests otherwise.”

Weaver noted that Austria, Argentina, Brazil, Germany and parts of the U.K. have given 16-year-olds the right to vote.

“Today’s decision-makers don’t have to live with the long-term consequences of the decisions they make,” he said. “Those who do are either not allowed to or are not participating in our democratic institutions. We can do something about the former by reducing the voter age to 16.”

Private member’s bills rarely pass, but Weaver has had more success than most at getting the government to adopt his legislation.