Topic
Ktunaxa vow to keep fighting despite approval, while NDP doubts ski resort will ever be built.
Jumbo Mountain, site of the approved resort. Photo: Dave Quinn.
Key decision looms on fate of proposed ski resort.
B.C. is fast tracking new ski areas costing billions. They’ll vie for a customer base headed downhill.
Find more politics reporting on The Tyee.
The British Columbia government announced on Tuesday the approval of a controversial plan to build Jumbo Glacier ski resort in the southeast of the province, despite the Ktunaxa Nation's objection. New Democratic Party MLA Norm MacDonald said he doubts the project will ever be built.
"After more than 20 years the time has come for a decision," said Steve Thomson, the minister of forests, lands and natural resource operations. Explaining why he was making the announcement in Victoria instead of the area affected, he said, "This is a provincial decision with implications to all the people in the province."
The completed resort on a 5,965 hectare piece of land 57 kilometres west of Invermere in the Purcell Mountains would be roughly one-tenth the size of Whistler. Plans include 23 lifts, a 3,000 metre-high gondola and year-round skiing.
Opposition to the proposal has been strong in the area, particularly from the Ktunaxa First Nation which in 2010 released the Qat'muk Declaration saying the site is sacred and would be closed to the ski resort.
The planned resort is near the Purcell Wilderness Conservancy, and Thomson said the province is working with the Ktunaxa First Nation to establish another large wildlife management area to protect grizzly bear habitat.
'Rugby'-style decision: Thomson
"I expect the Ktunaxa will continue to have concerns about this," said Thomson. However, the declaration does not have the legal weight to block the proposal, he said.
He noted the Shuswap band in Invermere, which has an overlapping claim to the area, has agreed to the proposal and signed agreements for revenue sharing with the developer.
"It's divided our communities, and we wanted it over," said Bill Bennett, MLA for Kootenay East, who spoke at the announcement with Thomson. He thanked Thomson and Premier Christy Clark for having the courage to make the decision.
Had the decision been announced in the Kootenays, there would be a thousand opponents on one side of the street and a thousand supporters on the other side shouting at each other, Bennett said. "You would have perpetuated exactly the sort of dynamic that's existed in our communities."
The opposition to the project has been well organized and well informed, he said.
While much of the discussion of the project has been about the politics, it's worth noting the advantages of the project, added Bennett. With a base at 1,700 metres above sea level, moderate temperatures and year-round snow without the need to manufacture it, the resort will be unique in North America, he said.
Thomson said as a rugby player he learned to confront challenges directly, which was useful in making the decision. Bennett said, "It takes a rugby player frankly to step in and get his arms around this, and that's what he did."
Project lacks money: NDP's MacDonald
The project is unlikely to happen anytime soon, said NDP MLA MacDonald. Responding to the government's approval of the project, he said, "It doesn't actually change a great deal."
Despite Bennett's claims of divided communities, the majority of local people have been and remain opposed to the proposal, said MacDonald, who represents Columbia River-Revelstoke, the constituency that includes Invermere.
"This one has never had the fundamentals right," he said. People who live in the area say the project makes no sense from environmental, social or financial perspectives, he said, noting the Ktunaxa First Nation opposes it. "That hasn't changed."
When projects make sense, they gain local support and move much faster, he said.
MacDonald criticized the government for making the announcement in Victoria instead of a community in the area. "I find it hugely insulting," he said. "It felt pretty colonial, I have to say."
Nor does the project appear to have any money behind it, he said.
A contact for the proponent did not respond to an email by posting time, but architect Oberto Oberti has reportedly said he hopes to have phase one running within two years.
Possible investors will be warned: Ktunaxa
The proponent will have to be shopping around for investors, said Kathryn Teneese, the chair of the Ktunaxa Nation. Any possible investors should know that the Ktunaxa First Nation holds the area sacred and strongly opposes the project, she said.
"We intend to make sure part of that shopping list includes the fulsome picture," she said. "I think they need to know."
The Ktunaxa are leaving the door open for whatever action is necessary to stop the project, she said. "I think we have a responsibility to protect the area and it's one we take very seriously."
She said she was "disappointed, a little bit angry and somewhat dismayed" by the B.C. government's announcement Tuesday morning that it had approved the project. The Ktunaxa have been consistent in their opposition to the plan since it was first proposed, she said.
MacDonald said he suspects that if the NDP wins the election scheduled for May 2013, it would be possible to reverse the decision. The project requires the province to build a $200 million road, according to the environmental assessment, he noted.
"It will be one of those things that have to be figured out," he said. The BC Liberal government is in free fall and the Jumbo project is just one of the complications or "land mines" it is likely to leave for the next government, he said.
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miguel
1 year ago
Rugby?
Who needs a legislature, when a rugby guy and his coach can solve things. Better than a bull in a china shop, to some degree I suppose.
RickW
1 year ago
Minister of Lands and Forests
Perhaps he was suffered from the same malady that kept Dick Cheney away from Toronto....
rantnic
1 year ago
LOG IT!
Log the mountains to clear the way for a project that will never go ahead. Some liberal friends of the Minister of Lands and Forests will no doubt make hay. Whether or not the Liberals form the next Grubberment, profits will flow.
Old Koot
1 year ago
Sounds like Mumbo-Jumbo to
Sounds like Mumbo-Jumbo to me!
ron wilton
1 year ago
Rugby
As a former participant of Rugby, I now understand why I have always been perplexed and confused by the disconnect between Steve Thomson's words and his actions.
His youthful choice of participating in such a head butting game where all the players wear their helmets on the inside, goes a long way to explaining his peculiar penchant for politics, and why he is so ill equipped for that calling.
Sadly, with this ill conceived decision on Jumbo, methinks his headaches have only just begun.
Lest there were any doubt of the impending demise of the Lieberals at any future election, this absurd decision will mercifully clarify that foregone conclusion.
From a government that leaps from absurdity to absurdity, one can only wonder where and when their next calamity will befall us.
jjanmaat
1 year ago
South Okanagan ...
Makes an interesting comment that a park proposal for the south Okanagan was rejected on account of the lack of sufficient local support, while the Jumbo proposal was approved in spite of local opposition.
rantnic
1 year ago
GRAFT
Approved in spite of local opposition. Log it!
VivianLea Doubt
1 year ago
road?
"The project requires the province to build a $200 million road, according to the environmental assessment, he noted." I am still trying to process this. The province, or in other words, the people of BC, are required to pay for the road that makes this free enterprise project viable? Why, exactly? And how does this equate to 'free enterprise'?
Pointless questions, really. Apparently rugby players are unintelligent enough to believe that projects subsidized by the taxpayers are free enterprise, but I doubt the voters are. This is also, to my mind, the most spectacularly beautiful place in the province, and I find it difficult to believe that it can be improved upon by developers. What an awful travesty and perversion.
Habos
1 year ago
Hear That Sound?
It's the rumble of the steamroller working for the B.C. ministry of decline.
200 million for a road to publicly subsidize "free enterprise", but no money for net zero slaves.......
Give your neo-conservative head a shake.
hg
1 year ago
Jumbo
Totally irresponsible. What happened to meaningful consultations with First Nations.
virimpig
1 year ago
another Liberal decision
Why does the present government continue to antagonize the peopls (the voters)of BC?
It seems Christy and her gang of goofballs know they are going down titanically come 2013 so she scatters her ministerial minions out to deliberately annoy her citizenry!
Jumbo will never be built so why do the BCLibs resurrect the spectre at this time?
James Cameron
1 year ago
Grasping at Straws
The Liberals are grasping at straws trying to spin themselves out of a nose dive. However I can't imagine how supporting a project that disregards the voices of Kootenay residents, leading grizzly bear biologists and the Ktunaxa First Nations' spiritual values could gain them any ground. Mount Revelstoke Resort is a prime example which was supposed to put Whistler out of business but talk to Revelstoke residents about the millions of dollars in losses there to date. Much of the rest of the resort industry in the southern interior is losing very large sums of money. MacDonald is correct, it will be very difficult to raise money for this project regardless of Crispy's go-ahead. The private sector doesn't squander their money like the Liberals squander ours!
Habos
1 year ago
Enjoy........
your jumbo psychosis, minister concussion-head.
Yer a hero, bud!
mmphosis
1 year ago
approved? under what authority?
Years ago, I asked a government official point blank, how the Jumbo Resort was in the best interest of British Columbians? He didn't or wouldn't give me an answer.
We are seeing more and more of this from politicians. We could take a clue from Iceland, and mayhaps elect a Left-Green government: merge the NDP and Greens. Bring in electoral reform and default on all of these odious debts from regimes of the past.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odious_debt
jimmmmy
1 year ago
Banksters
Just what we need another watershed ruined by banksters and jetsetters on holiday.
OwlRol
1 year ago
James C. is on the money.
James C. is on the money.
Although developing B.C. tourism as a non-extractive industry has long been a government goal of every stripe, it was hyper promoted with Supernatural Gordo in the past decade.
Whistler nearly went bankrupt in the early 80s, but survived and prospered. Perhaps that's the government thinking here.
The real difference is that at the time there was no large scale competition for Whistler (Lake louise, Sunshine village at Banff?) short of Colorado.
Since that time Panorama and Revelstoke were developed while Fernie-Snow Valley, Silver Star and others were expanded.
Although a year round ski resort, comparable to some higher European Alps sites, are a dreamer's wish, the competition in a much less populated region just doesn't add up financially, except as a 1% exclusive resort.
The Great Recession, aging demographics and rising jet fuel/air travel costs, let alone climate change (the huge white plastic blankets now used in the Alps to try and reduce glacial melting as well as the probable closure of some of those resorts due to shorter snow seasons - this resort's elevation is a positive factor here, but it may not long be year round usable snow), these were simply never factored into this development rush, and are still blinkered by many developers and so called free enterprise government.
Add in local and regional environmental issues, First nations cultural values, a taxpayer subsidized road used only by this proposed resort (money that should be applied to that nearby deadly sector of the trans Canada hwy.), all these make this a poor choice. If ski tourists don't come and spend in large numbers, it'll flop.
Too many resorts competing in a region surely becomes inefficient and financially wasteful. For example, although already in trouble, the Mt. Washington development surely put the last nails into the Forbidden Plateau coffin outside Courtney. The waste is to the overall industry, let alone to personal and community dynamics, despite the dream of jobs (many at little over minimum wage) and stimulation of economic activity.
23 lifts and a gondola in a site "one tenth the size of Whistler" (Whistler Blackcomb has about 27 lifts, a couple of which are never used and will likely be removed soon). Guess skiers and boarders will be often under a lift, kinda takes away from the Supernatural experience Gordo kept pushing.
Princess Christy, her entourage and sheriffs are insulated in Victoria, only sending out to announce edicts, collect tithes and taxes from the serfs. Another castle complex for the not so noble nobles up on the mountaintop?
Skywalker
1 year ago
Whistler?
Didn't whistler get some debt forgiveness in the 80's? Like a lot of development promotions they all give a few people jobs for a time and then they disappear into some black hole...that is unless they can get their hands in the taxpayers' pocket.
KD Brown
1 year ago
Yay! Skiing on a glacier!
Just in time to see it melt out from under your skis!
What a comment on the blinkered nature of much of our wealthy - totally ignore the impacts of global climate change, indeed, deny that it exists, so that we can continue to promote the very developments that cause it.
That this ski-on-a-glacier development is being proposed at this time in our history without a touch of irony is... well, ironic...
What a failed model for "development," and a failed opportunity to really explore what a sustainable future might look like for mountain communities...
Noes
1 year ago
Really??
Are we British Columbians ever going to stop f---ing our First Nations??
Tempered
1 year ago
Sadly
I live near Jumbo. We don't support this. It is a white elephant. A sham.
Skiers do not ski here in the summer, the resorts closed now, there is lots of snow, but it is time to garden and mountain bike and rock climb.
We will be left with a rusty cable lift and concrete foundations on the Jumbo site. Only the promoters will get wealthy. The mess will never be cleaned up...maybe the grizzlies and caribou will come back someday?