December 2, 2024
Mohkínstsis | Wîchîspa | Guts’ists’i | Calgary

CPAWS Northern and Southern Alberta have grave concerns regarding Bill 35 – the All-Season Resorts Act – which goes to third reading in the provincial legislature on Wednesday, December 4.

If passed, Bill 35 would expose parks, protected areas, and public land – beloved by Albertans and crucial to biodiversity conservation and ecological integrity – to the development of year-round privatized resorts.

Tourism development should be pursued as part of creating a sustainable, diversified provincial economy, which requires it to be implemented within a broader land management approach, and the land-use planning framework. This includes ensuring equitable, ecologically responsible access to recreation and tourism opportunities for current and future generations through long-term land management. However, this Act achieves none of this.

The proposed act exempts any tourism development in ‘all-season resort zones’ from the normal environmental land-use planning, review and approval processes applied to all other public land use activities, circumventing and undermining the Alberta Land Stewardship Act (ALSA) and the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (EPA).

Alarmingly, Bill 35 also makes it clear that the Minister of Tourism and Sport has the power to de-list and remove protected area designations in order to create all-season resort zones. This is an unprecedented transfer of land management powers to the Ministry of Tourism and Sport, which has never acted as a land manager, having neither the scope, experience, nor the capacity to do so.

“We expect all developments on public land – from renewable energy projects, oil and gas developments, and commercial resorts – to be subject to the same scrutiny and attention to their impacts to the environment and people alike,” notes Tara Russell, Program Director at CPAWS Northern Alberta.

Bill 35 further supersedes the Kananaskis Country Recreation Policy, which was created based on robust public consultation and mandates that the future of Kananaskis should be to center conservation, not large-scale commercial development. All developments in the province should be in line with existing policies.

“The alacrity with which the province has taken this Bill through first, second and soon third reading feels like a bad faith way of engaging with citizens. There was no opportunity for public engagement or opinion, in spite of the fact that Albertans love their parks and want to see them protected – we saw that through Defend Alberta Parks, and we’ll see it again if this bill passes,” says Katie Morrison, Executive Director, CPAWS Southern Alberta.

The proposed Act also flies in the face of recent public polling, and the Government of Alberta’s own Plan for Parks survey results, which overwhelmingly highlighted support for increased protected areas, low-impact recreation, and opposed large-scale commercial development in Alberta’s parks.

Upon CPAWS alerting the public about the Bill’s upcoming third reading, over 3,700 Albertans have already voiced their opposition to the All-Season Resorts Act.