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A misplaced groin kick to the economy

Help. Help stop the B.C. Liberals and their curbside cabal, Multi Material B.C.

Help.

Help stop the B.C. Liberals and their curbside cabal, Multi Material B.C., from using a no-look, backdoor tax to hijack the province's recycling system, squelch vital community voices, hike household expenses, kill jobs, wreck businesses and deliver a misplaced groin kick to the economy. Help area MLAs Shirley Bond and Mike Morris undo arguably the most wrong-headed suite of policies ever conceived by a provincial government.

The source of this distress call is the B.C. environmental management act's altered recycling regulations, which begin steamrolling across the province on May 19.

Like most such malignancies, the method it adopts - extended producer responsibility - sounds reasonable enough: the people who make stuff should recover and recycle that stuff from the marketplace, in a manner similar to how batteries, oil and pop cans are handled.

In theory, in relation to specific products, that's perhaps a sound model. Its practical application in this case, however, is a mix of perversion and unintended consequence.

Under the threat of fines and other punitive legal action from the B.C. Ministry of Environment, producers of packaging and printed paper materials will be in effect taxed millions of dollars. Unlike a normal tax that can be used for schools and hospitals, the proceeds of this green shakedown will be sent into the coffers of a quasibureaucracy, Multi Material B.C., which is using the money to give birth to and run a pseudo-public sector provincewide recycling system that will crush much of the infrastructure and enterprises that existed before it.

Or to put it more simply, a potentially ruinous tax on a broad collection of industries will be used to subsidize an unaccountable organization's near monopoly of a B.C. sector. It is recycling in a way since these policies seem to be cannibalism unnecessarily complicated by outsourcing.

Regardless, it's baffling that a party that espouses the virtues of free enterprise like the B.C. Liberals would pursue a course that is so economically destructive, clumsily interventionist and corrosively regulatory. But all such considerations no doubt were banished by the easily peddled mirage that it's free to the taxpayer. Indeed, one of the politicians nursing on the sour milk from this particular canard, Prince George Councillor Cameron Stolz, proudly hooted on Facebook about MMBC's proposed curbside recycling service in Prince George: "It will be delivered at no cost and no risk to the City of Prince George!"

Not quite Cameron. While the cost won't be placed at the doorsteps of his fellow poobahs of Patricia Boulevard, citizens will be paying plenty because this tax on producers of everything from cereal boxes to wrapping paper will be passed on to consumers and their pocketbooks.

Here in Prince George and in surrounding communities, residents had a choice if they wanted to recycle: drop it off on their own or opt for the pick-up service of a local private business. Stolz can now be proud that that choice is gone, those businesses will be forced to compete with a tax-engorged half-green behemoth and it will be pay for MMBC or else. What a triumph, councillor.

As for the risk, it was Stolz who described part of an MMBC proposal to the city and regional district as 'ridiculous and over the top.' The recycopoly wanted the city to operate its curbside recycling service, which staff estimated would cost $1 million a year; MMBC offered to kick in $781,000 of the province's money and, if the recycling wasn't done as it wanted, MMBC reserved the right to fine the city up to $2 million a year.

This is the sort of entity that will be running curbside recycling in Prince George come September. It's contracted the work to Emterra Environmental, which in its first full year of service in Winnipeg, according to Global News, missed 15,000 recycling pickups, causing some in that city's council to call for its contract to be cancelled. Even if they manage to fulfil their obligations, Emterra and MMBC will already be providing an inferior service to existing options - they won't be picking up glass, some plastic products, beverage cans or bottles while there are nagging questions of how they will handle rural clients.

And the MMBC recycling tax will affect the newspaper you're holding in your hand right now. It's estimated the bill will come to $14 million for newspapers across B.C, which to an industry as troubled as this one is, could mean job losses and a blow to the print journalist's ability to share the stories of their communities. This newspaper, and its counterparts across the province, are not perfect in their role as watchdogs, champions, sympathetic ears and harbours of last resort; however, there is no doubt many who have differing interests than yours want this forum and public service silenced.

So please help. Visit ReThinkitBC.ca for more information. If you're convinced, email Premier Christy Clark at premier@gov.bc.ca and ask her to rethink this scheme.

You may just curb a disaster. Help bin the tax.

-- Associate news editor Rodney Venis is the former co-owner of a local curbside recycling business.