Ski resort should stop playing the victim

Parks are for the people, say Kevin Van Tighem and Steve Whittingham

Recent opinions, in our view, have distorted issues involving Sunshine Village ski area in Banff National Park. It’s time to set the record straight.

Parks Canada is responsible to fairly implement policies that provide for the benefit, education and enjoyment of our national parks by Canadians in ways that keep them unimpaired for future generations. It is a grave responsibility that Canadians have repeatedly reaffirmed when asked. More than 20 years ago, when widespread public concern about over development in the parks was verified by expert review panels, Parks Canada began establishing limits to commercial growth.

Every commercial developer in the mountain parks — from townsites to commercial accommodations, to ski areas — has now concluded negotiations with Parks Canada and arrived at permanent caps on new development, and guidelines to what sorts of development can be allowed. Sunshine is the single exception. That’s because they refuse to abide by National Ski Area Management Guidelines that set the rules for redevelopment of all ski areas.

These guidelines, established following extensive public consultations, were accepted as sound policy by five Conservative ministers and one Liberal minister.

Under the guidelines, ski areas can expand outside of their existing developed areas only if “there is a substantial environmental gain within or adjacent to the leasehold.”

Each resort can negotiate site-specific guidelines that streamline future approvals by defining what new development can be considered and any conditions necessary to protect the park’s ecology.

Those are difficult negotiations. Even so, all other mountain national park ski areas have concluded those discussions successfully with Parks Canada. Marmot, Mount Norquay and Lake Louise now have area guidelines that give them business certainty and ensure that future development won’t impair park ecosystems.

Each can even get approval for a limited number of developments inconsistent with the National Ski Area Management Guidelines, because they agreed to changes that offer substantial environmental gains.

In 1998, Sunshine formally withdrew an earlier plan that included most of the development it is now proposing, to avoid a formal review of the proposal’s environmental impact. The parking issue remains unresolved because Sunshine Village has operated without an approved longrange plan for two decades. It’s that simple. It needs to be clear that Parks Canada has not proposed a parkade; the draft site guidelines merely said they would be willing to consider one, given the limited space on the available land. That’s a big concession.

If Sunshine wants a different parking solution, it’ll need to show Canadians how that exception can be fully balanced with a “substantial environmental gain within or adjacent to the leasehold.” They haven’t. Parks Canada has even closed down public access outside the resort to try and compensate for wildlife displacement caused by Sunshine’s heavy use. Essentially, Canadians have lost recreational opportunities because of the resort’s existing impacts on the park.

The current owners of Sunshine appear unwilling to operate by the same principles as every other park business. Having reviewed the draft site guidelines, we feel that Parks Canada has leaned over backward to accommodate the ski area’s interests.

National parks are a protected heritage for Canadians, not commercial zones. It is unfair to other business operators who have constrained their ambitions when the one remaining holdout demands major concessions at the expense of the park’s ecological health — and of everyday Canadians who want freedom to enjoy an unimpaired national park.

Sunshine needs to get realistic, stop playing the victim, abide by the National Ski Area Management Guidelines — and accept that the public interest, not private commercial ambitions, comes first in Canada’s national parks.