The federal NDP’s environment critic told the Straight he prefers a cap-and-trade system over a carbon tax when it comes to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Skeena–Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen’s opinion is in line with that of provincial NDP leader Carole James, who told the Straight last week that her party will be voting against B.C. finance minister Carole Taylor’s Carbon Tax Act (Bill 37).

“We are more in favour of cap and trade in terms of our mechanism for lowering greenhouse gases,” Cullen said by phone. “It is more accountable and you are managing for greenhouse gases rather than taxes. It is used by every country that is serious about climate change in the world, and it goes after the big polluters first, which is where we think that Canada should start.”

Cullen would not comment on James’s opposition to Bill 37.

“They are going to make their own policies,” he said. “I haven’t been following closely. I have been watching the reaction up here in the northwest, and people are unsure of it, maybe even unenthusiastic. But provincially, they will have to answer for themselves. I don’t want to tread on their turf.”

Cullen added: “I just don’t like the way this has come about—
certainly federally, where [the Liberals’ Stéphane] Dion has tried to make this a wedge issue, as opposed to any sincere effort he has tried to distinguish himself as a leader. This has been his struggle, so they have searched around [for] something that is definitive and obvious but have left out all the details. It is not very responsible, actually.”

On May 14, provincial NDP whip Katrine Conroy told the Straight her caucus would be opposing Bill 37, but she would not state whether the vote would be a whipped vote or a free vote.

“I am saying we are voting against it, and there are reasons why we are voting against it,” Conroy, MLA for West Kootenay–Boundary, said at the time. “In our area, if you want to talk about what it is doing in rural B.C., there are excellent reasons why we are voting against it.”

Conroy would not state whether or not an MLA faced censure for voting in favour of the carbon tax.

“I don’t think we need to go there,” she said.