Vancouver Chapter News

What can a talking sheep, a board game, and a giant thermometer teach kids about climate change and energy use? When they’re a part of BCSEA’s Climate Change Showdown, the answer is quite a bit.

The Showdown is an in-class workshop designed for elementary schools, which challenges children to participate in a take-home contest to reduce their family’s energy use. Since 2005, the program has reached 40,000 BC students, and participation in this year’s take home contest was phenomenal.

Through the Public Sector Energy Conservation Agreement (PSECA), the BC Government has allocated $25 million for energy retrofit projects to eligible public sector organizations over the next year. Of this, $2 million has been earmarked specifically for solar projects, and the Province has chosen to partner with BCSEA’s SolarBC project to identify qualifying projects.

"We know this investment will immediately translate into a lower energy footprint for public sector buildings, less carbon pollution, and savings to taxpayers," said John Yap, Minister of State for Climate Action. "Equally important, these investments will create new jobs across the province and spur public sector organizations and B.C. businesses to find innovative ways to tackle climate change.

At our April chapter meeting, Christine Carter from Bullfrog Power provided a great overview of how Bullfrog Power provides green energy to residents and businesses in BC via Wind Energy.

For more details and overview of their solution and wind power in Canada, please see the attached presentation.

We all hate the HST, right? It's now a populist campaign, led by former premier Bill Vander Zalm, who has, by the way, also predicted the HST will expand to take in the U.S. and Mexico and eventually be controlled from Brussels, Belgium, as part of a conspiratorial New World Order.

The HST has its pros and cons, but maybe we're being blinded by it and missing the real target. To explain why, let me step back for a moment. Under the PST, various "good" things are exempt, including bicycles and renewable energy equipment. That makes sense. But so are transport fuels and residential heating fuels: oil and gas.

Under the HST, the only exemptions allowed are those on a federal Department of Finance list in Ottawa that does not include bicycles or renewable energy equipment. So these exemptions have to go, along with almost everything else. The exemptions on transport and residential fuels, however, are permitted, and will remain.