Manitoba schools await federal carbon-tax cash

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/08/2019 (2637 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After the provincial government refused to redistribute federal carbon-tax cash to local schools, the Manitoba School Boards Association (MSBA) has volunteered to help Ottawa dole out $5.4 million to school divisions.

The money is reserved for energy-efficient retrofits, like the addition of solar panels, new windows, furnaces and insulation to schools.

MSBA president Alan Campbell said the association’s understanding is the millions will be divvied among school boards on a per-capita basis, considering student enrolment numbers.

Campbell said the MBSA wrote to the federal Liberals in July expressing interest in helping remit the millions to school boards after Premier Brian Pallister called the exercise a “hoax” he didn’t want to take part in.

“We’re the next best option to facilitate the distribution of these funds. Individual Manitobans are paying carbon tax both on an individual basis, but they’re also paying their school taxes, which are also going towards the carbon taxes that are part of the cost of running public schools,” Campbell said.

“If the federal government would like to offer some of that back in the form of environmental sustainability retrofits to those public schools that are owned by Manitobans, it’s up to school boards to engage in that conversation and we’re happy to do that.”

After Pallister reneged on participating last month, the federal government considered giving the millions reserved for public schools to universities, hospitals and towns instead. There was no precedent for Ottawa bypassing a provincial government to give funding to school boards, a spokesperson for Environment Canada previously told the Free Press.

In a statement sent Wednesday, Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna again expressed her disappointment with the Manitoba government’s unwillingness to participate, but appeared to appreciate the change of course, noting “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“While the federal government can’t give the funding directly to schools, we look forward to working with the Manitoba School Boards Association on an agreement for it to distribute funding to schools in Manitoba,” McKenna said.

“Students and teachers in Manitoba care about climate change and want to be part of the solution. This funding will help them do just that.”

Responding to the new development by email, Sustainable Development Minister Rochelle Squires chastised Ottawa for implementing an escalating carbon tax at all, a policy the Pallister government previously said it plans to fight in court.

“It’s unfortunate the Trudeau Liberals won’t simply recognize that Manitobans shouldn’t be paying Ottawa’s rising carbon tax in the first place. Instead they insist on this pre-election shell game, to flow a tiny portion of their new federal tax revenue to schools boards – which Manitoba taxpayers already fully fund,” Squires said.

“Manitobans need less tax burdens not more of them.”

Ottawa will also be providing school-retrofit funding in the three other provinces where the carbon backstop applies — New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan — with help from those provincial governments.

jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @_jessbu