Recruited to Jobs Quickly Killed, Green Minded Youth Wonder 'What Could Have Been'

In April 2008, Gordon Campbell declared he wanted to give young people "the chance to be ambassadors for our climate's future."

With great fanfare, in front of more than 100 aspiring environmental leaders, the then-premier personally announced the creation of a Youth Climate Leadership Alliance.

But there were no crowds, fanfares or news coverage, when those employed by the alliance abruptly discovered the government was pulling its promise to provide $3 million worth of funding to the initiative, putting them out of work in Nov. 2009.

Green jobs for youth promised

Premier Campbell's announcement launching the program laid out four goals:

• Engage and encourage youth in B.C. to take action on the climate.

• Increase British Columbians' awareness and understanding of the importance of climate action activities.

• Provide youth with the opportunity to get involved in climate action initiatives in government.

• Provide experience a career opportunities for youth in the BC Public Service.

And he promised year-long jobs including climate change field research, urban tree planting, and encouraging more efficient driving.

Amber Church, who was then working on her master's degree at Simon Fraser University, was a Youth Climate Leadership Alliance employee.

As one of its 12 facilitators, she worked out of schools to educate youth about the fight against global warming.

But, in an interview with The Tyee, Church said she and her colleagues were told the alliance's funding would be terminated due to budget pressures that shifted government priorities away from the environment.

'Could have gone a lot further'

As a result of that decision, according to Church, the government lost "the ability to tap into all that energy and enthusiasm that's boiling over in Canadian youth, to work on climate change."

Indeed, Christine Grossutti -- another climate action facilitator -- felt the alliance left a legacy of "what could have been."

"We were just getting our feet wet," said Grossutti, who helped run a program to inform the public about the environmental consequences of vehicle idling.

"With any sort of program it takes a long time to get things up and running," she continued, adding that was "unfortunate" the alliance "had to end when it did because it could have gone a lot further."

Speaking with The Tyee, Western Canada Wilderness Committee campaigner Ben West said that when he first heard about the alliance he "wondered how much of it was about scoring [public relations] points for the provincial government."

And now that the short-lived program has been dead for nearly two years, he said it's clear that was the case.

'Tough choices needed to be made': government spokesperson

But a government spokesperson rejected that analysis, pointing to the on-the-ground work the team did -- which included working on a government tree planting program and helping local stewardship groups.

"The program was ramping up in the spring of 2009 during a global economic crisis," the spokesperson explained. "Tough choices needed to be made by the B.C government to maintain its priority on protecting health and education programs."

"As with other ministries, the ministry of environment was asked to identify reductions. The Youth Climate Leadership Alliance was identified as one place to do so."

Nevertheless, following that cutback, West said are still some "really fantastic youth-based groups that are doing their own thing with or without the government."

Indeed, "a lot of the real climate change leadership is coming from youth and this provincial government funding cut hasn't changed what they're doing."