New Brunswick's Environmental Trust Fund rejected 40% of applications this year
CBC
New Brunswick's Environmental Trust Fund is continuing to go through years of accumulated savings to support community-based environmental projects, and the provincial Environment Department is not rushing to find the program a new source of revenue.
Two years ago, the province terminated dedicated income for the trust fund, which was set up more than 30 years ago to support "grassroots environmental restoration and protection" projects.
This year, the fund is using "the accumulated surplus to continue to support priority projects while alternative funding sources are evaluated," department spokesperson Vicky Lutes said in an email.
"It's too early to say what the fund will look like in the future."
The trust fund was financed initially by dedicated video lottery revenues and later by a fixed share of bottle deposit money.
But it was left without any long-term funding when the former Progressive Conservative government overhauled the bottle deposit system in 2023 legislative changes and redirected what had been environmental trust fund revenue to a program run by the beverage industry.
In 2023, former PC environment minister Gary Crossman said new "revenue streams" for the Environmental Trust Fund to replace bottle-deposit money would be evaluated, but nothing came of that before the Blaine Higgs government lost the general election last fall to the Liberals under Susan Holt.
In early 2024, then Liberal environment critic Gilles LePage criticized Crossman and his department for leaving the trust fund without its own income source.
"I thought the plan would be available this year because we've been waiting for a full year," Lepage said during a legislature committee examination of the department's budget.
"It's kind of worrisome for some organizations that do excellent work under that fund, so I'm very disappointed."
Lepage is now the environment minister but has not announced any plan of his own.
A request this week to interview Lepage about the fund was not granted.
The trust fund did have an interest-generating surplus in its accounts of $40.9 million built up over 30 years and has been using that money to keep itself running.
It has already spent nearly half that amount and has been depleting what's left at a rate of more than $20,000 a day.
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