PENTICTON – The end of tolls on the Coquihalla Highway isn’t good news for everyone.

My drive to this picturesque Okanagan town for the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention took me up Highway 3, better known as the Hope-Princeton, and on through the magnificent scenery of Hedley and Keremeos. Those towns, along with Penticton, felt the pinch of lost tourist traffic when the Coquihalla opened 22 years ago, and they will feel it again now that the faster alternative route is toll-free at last.

Same goes for Fraser Canyon communities like Ashcroft and Cache Creek. Truckers and tourists will be more likely to skip the canyon’s tunnels, twists and stunning views, except when the famously brutal winter weather of the Coquihalla and Okanagan Connector summits takes hold.

Premier Gordon Campbell’s surprise announcement of the death of tolls was the highlight of a convention dominated by the carbon tax debate.

NDP leader Carole James gave a risky campaign-style speech that ripped the Campbell government over and over. Sample: “Remember the Heartlands? Five years ago the Premier discovered it somewhere between Hope and the Yukon border. And he promised to put forestry on a sound and sustainable footing.”

The rhetoric got James a (mostly) standing ovation from a group of local politicians usually wary of offending the government. But then she dug herself deeper in the hole on her increasingly logic-challenged climate change policy.

She’ll axe the carbon tax, of course, but keep at least the initial round of personal and business tax cuts, at a cost of around $600 million. Where will that money come from?

Wait for our election platform, James says, but mostly it will come from a cap and trade system on big industrial emitters of greenhouse gases. She shrugged off earlier party documents referring specifically to NDP carbon taxes as mere “discussion papers.” But with her speech she handed out the latest version of the B.C. NDP climate change plan. It too refers to “a carbon tax at source,” something the NDP seems to use interchangeably with carbon trading.

James would impose carbon trading immediately, rather than wait for 2012 when the partnership of provinces and U.S. states might be ready to proceed.

Even if B.C. had any steel mills, as James conjured up in a recent radio interview, we couldn’t have our own cap and trade system. We could unilaterally tax big industry, which would spur it to move elsewhere. The NDP either doesn’t understand carbon trading, or they’re blowing smoke.

Campbell’s performance shows he’s worried about his standing in the “heartlands.” Opening with a surprise move to rebate carbon taxes incurred by municipalities and school districts, he then sprinkled his keynote speech with goodies for smaller communities. The small-town infrastructure program gets extended to places up to 15,000 people, and another $5 million goes toward cell and internet service for rural communities.

The big issue remains the carbon tax on fuel, and its disproportionate impact on rural and northern places. This more than anything could decide the spring election.

I asked one of B.C.’s most respected veteran mayors, Gerry Furney of Port McNeill on northern Vancouver Island, what he thinks of it.

“There are lots of people who will be paying that tax who will make no profit in their businesses,” Furney said. “They’re having a tough time and they’re not going to get anything back.”

He’s right about that, and it’s the places with the most fragile economies that will feel it most.

So far, the choice is between a government that adds to rural burdens, or an opposition whose policies don’t add up.

Olympic goodies

Does your town have a Spirit Square yet? A spirit what, you ask? That’s a downtown gathering point where people can watch the Olympics, or train for some future games, courtesy of another B.C. government grant program.

It’s a legitimate enough scheme, but it’s kind of like those big earthen berms that served as community welcome signs for Expo 86. The big city gets the party and the rest of the towns get the equivalent of a nice t-shirt.

Well, there’s more to come, Campbell told delegates at the UBCM convention.

International concerts and cultural events will be coming to your town, not just Vancouver and Whistler. “When you hear Bryan Adams sing, or Sarah McLachlan sing, you’re not going to have to listen to them down in Vancouver, you’ll be listening right close to home.”

There will be television feeds from those Spirit Squares (well, not all 180 B.C. communities, but lots of them) and they will be the “beauty shots” used by broadcasters between events.

Plea for planet

The UBCM convention has become Campbell’s “state of the union” speech, with this one clocking in at a little under an hour.

The government is going to stay with its climate change program and clean power development so Campbell can look his infant grandson in the eye when he’s older and say he did what was right. It will be the defining choice of the May election and the people will choose.

Winding up with his vision of Olympic billions seeing “the best place on Earth,” Campbell struggled to hold back tears.

Those rumours that Campbell may retire before the election? Forget them.

Tom Fletcher is legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press newspapers. tfletcher@blackpress.ca