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Some of the opposition to Finance Minister Victor Boudreau's 2008 budget can be dismissed as partisan grousing. This is not true of complaints being leveled against funding changes to the Department of Environment.

Mr. Boudreau has earned the jeers he's been getting over the decision to fund the Department of Environment out of the Environmental Trust Fund. The government is going to tap the fund for $2 million to cover the department's day-to-day operating expenses - not exactly what an earlier Liberal government had in mind when they created the fund to pay for wildlife and habitat enhancement, environmental reclamation projects and community clean-up programs.

We're all for trimming wasteful expenditures in government departments, and as a matter of principle, we support user-pay initiatives to cover services such as environmental monitoring and regulation. But raiding the Environmental Trust Fund to cover operational expenses is a dumb idea.

The Department of Environment has done little to improve New Brunswick's landscape and watersheds - that invaluable work is performed by community groups and their corporate sponsors, who draw partial project funding from the Environmental Trust Fund to a value of more than $6 million each year.

In effect, the government is cutting funding for conservation, restoration, beautification and environmental protection by one third. Which prompts an interesting question: will the Premier be able to convince visitors they want to "be... in this place" if this place becomes run down and polluted?