Koch & Weissenberger: A mountain of bureaucracy for B.C.’s Jumbo ski resort
George Koch and John Weissenberger, Special to National Post | Nov 27, 2012 12:01 AM ET | Last Updated: Nov 27, 2012 12:02 AM ET
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CALGARY — Perched atop Glacier Dome at 3,000 metres on the spine of B.C.’s Purcell Mountains, the skier first absorbs the dazzling, 360-degree view of glaciers, peaks and deep forested valleys, before pushing off in lovely powder snow and descending nearly 1,500 vertical metres into the Jumbo Creek valley.
Until now, this experience was restricted to elite heli-skiers and those few ski-touring on foot. But last week, B.C.’s Liberal government designated this area the province’s newest mountain resort municipality (the same status as Whistler). Soon, thousands of ordinary skiers and sight-seers may be riding a gondola onto Glacier Dome year-round, while a compact new village sprouts at the resort’s base.
For Oberto Oberti, a Vancouver-based architect and life-long passionate alpine skier, it has been a 22-year slog to transform Glacier Dome and the adjoining, much smaller Jumbo Glacier (for which the development is named) into Canada’s only true high-alpine, year-round ski area and sightseeing/hiking resort. Oberti, who also conceived and initially drove the hugely successful Kicking Horse Mountain Resort more than a decade ago, performed every study, submitted every report and fulfilled every one of the time-consuming, expensive steps demanded by B.C.’s comprehensive regulatory process.
First proposed in 1991, Jumbo was recognized as suitable for development in the East Kootenay Land-Use Plan of the Commission on Resources and Environment (CORE) in 1995. Various NDP ministers of the day then promised a “fair” process for Jumbo. Nine years later, Jumbo received its provincial Environmental Certificate, renewed in 2009 so Oberti could complete the remaining key step, the Master Development Plan. In March of this year, the B.C. government signed the Master Development Agreement. Last week’s move is the final legal step before construction.
All along, Oberti faced misinformation, junk science, paranoia and attempted political sabotage. Ad hominem attacks assailed him and his company’s directors. Many supporters were cowed into silence, but Oberti received strong support from Liberal MLAs Bill Bennett and Ralph Sultan, now ministers in Premier Christy Clark’s cabinet.
Oberti’s detractors were plain wrong on every major issue. They continue to claim that Jumbo threatens grizzly bears. Years ago, a definitive study found that just two grizzlies use the valley, of roughly 45 in the central Purcells. The regional population is now estimated at 4,300, 15,000 province-wide. Annually, about 250 grizzlies are legally shot. Jumbo, in other words, is immaterial to the grizzly.
Jumbo’s opponents love the word “pristine.” In fact, the valley has been logged and mined, and a road extends almost to the village site. Opponents snowmobile in to paint anti-Jumbo signs in the snow, heli-ski operators have cut runs through the woods, and in summertime there’s mechanized ski-race training on the nearby Farnham Glacier.
Lastly, the word itself: Jumbo. From the U.S. border to Roger’s Pass, the Purcells and adjoining ranges comprise over 24,000 square kilometres, of which more than 15% is already park or conservancy. The resort village will cover one — yes just one — square kilometre. The controlled recreation area (where lifts can be built and people ski) will cover about 60 square kilometres.
Given Oberti’s success, one could say B.C.’s development approval process works. But does it?
Projects face fanatical opponents-of-everything, who use every procedural and rhetorical device to stop developments, sometimes even after formal approval. Who else would endure over two decades of time, expense, delays, broken political promises, bureaucratic machinations and continuous vilification? Anyone lacking Oberti’s rare combination of commitment, patience, contrariness and sheer love of skiing would have quit long ago.
Oberti’s experience shows how hard it’s become to get anything serious done in British Columbia. In September, the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy ranked B.C. Canada’s least tax-competitive province. A recent B.C. Business Council report noted that, while the World Economic Forum rated Canada 12th in competitiveness, B.C.’s outlook is uncertain. The report cites $100-billion in “major project investment on the books” province-wide, and calls for a “predictable and competitive” regulatory regime. The Jumbo story suggests that’s a pipe dream.
Indeed, local NDP MLA Norm Macdonald called last week’s move an “abuse of power” and strongly implied his party would kill the project. There’s a provincial election next May.
If that was more than sabre-rattling, it would suggest a radical leftward slide by B.C.’s NDP. Over the decades, Jumbo had the explicit support of two NDP premiers — Mike Harcourt and Glen Clark — and the neutrality of another, Ujjal Dosanjh.
Killing Jumbo Glacier Resort now would require rewriting province-wide land-use and local government legislation in such a way as to affect only Jumbo, while breaking a contract providing 50-year use plus fee-simple land titles. It’s hard to see the courts upholding such arbitrary, capricious government action. Even if they did, the required compensation would be in the tens of millions of dollars. Using taxpayers’ money to kill a duly-approved project that would generate 800 jobs plus hundreds of millions in wages and taxes would be obscene — and perhaps too much even for the NDP.
National Post
George Koch is a Calgary-based writer and columnist for Ski Canada magazine. John Weissenberger is an East Kootenay taxpayer.
