Editor: Re: Feds approve Lake Louise guidelines, published in the Aug. 6 Outlook.
It comes as no surprise to me that Parks Canada has “quietly and quickly approved guidelines for the expansion of the Lake Louise ski area …” That sentence finished with “...prompting former senior Parks Canada Managers to consider asking the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to investigate threats to Banff National Park.”
I have no idea of the past work-related history of the other 10 former senior park managers who are considering “asking the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to investigate threats to Banff National Park,” but I do know that the 11th member, former Banff Park Field Unit Superintendent Kevin Van Tighem, demonstrated his contempt for the Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office (FHBRO) when he ordered the demolition, in 2011, of Claremount House, which FHBRO had declared a Federal Heritage Building in 1994.
It’s not a big leap to think that if an official – perhaps that should be plural, officials, because all Banff National Park Superintendents from 1994 to 2011 must share a portion of the responsibility for the destruction of that Federal Heritage Building – shows contempt for the Government of Canada FHBRO, then perhaps he, or they, were also contemptuous of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee.
Mr. Van Tighem’s principle publicly declared reason for ordering the destruction of Claremount was that it was at the edge of a wildlife corridor. Claremount was visible from the roadway leading up to the Sulphur Mountain Gondola. One has only to watch a Youtube video titled “Busy Sulphur Road” to understand how ludicrous Mr. Van Tighem’s argument was.
Additionally, I cannot understand how Mr. Van Tighem can be surprised that Parks Canada has recently “approved guidelines for the expansion of the Lake Louise ski area.” I told this former Banff field unit superintendent, at a Parks staff-only meeting at which he was aggressively promoting the Draft BNP 2010 Management Plan, that what he was promoting was not a management plan but was, realistically, a marketing plan.
No doubt he had been prepared for negative opinions, because he immediately launched into a passionate stream of verbal diarrhea during which he vigorously supported the draft management plan.
Except for the business community that stands to benefit from a successful marketing plan that increases visitation – a goal of the management plan is to increase visitation by two per cent per annum – I suspect that a majority of Parks Canada supporters do not support the quick “approval of guidelines for the expansion of the Lake Louise ski area,” particularly when considering the potentially cumulative negative effects of other recently constructed visitor attractions such as Brewster’s Glacier Skywalk and via ferrata on Mt. Norquay.
Even the much needed, and very welcome, infusion of millions of dollars to upgrade the long-neglected infrastructure of Banff National Park will increase visitation. Increased visitation and the resulting increased revenue – that’s what the 2010 Banff National Park management plan called for.
Jon Whelan,
Banff
