![]() Alberta to close or reduce 20 parks due to budget cutsProvincial Politics | 207420 hits | Mar 03 3:47 pm | Posted by: BeaverFever Commentsview comments in forum Page 1 You need to be a member of CKA and be logged into the site, to comment on news. |
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Alberta Parks announced the list of closures online, which will leave some sites entirely off-limits to the public this year and others with specific campgrounds or facilities closed.
Shortened operating seasons will be in effect for some provincial campgrounds, meaning later opening dates and earlier closures than usual.
.... Nixon was unable to say how much money the move would save. Documents released by his department late Monday put the figure at $5 million in the 2020 budget year.
Beginning this fall, Alberta Parks staff will also no longer groom cross-country ski trail tracks in three areas of the Kananaskis Region. Those include Peter Lougheed Trail, Mount Shark Trail and the Kananaskis Village area.
Grooming will continue at the Canmore Nordic Centre, while track-setting by the West Bragg Creek Trails Association will still occur in the West Bragg Creek area.
The Alberta budget tabled last Thursday also included job losses to seasonal staff and increased camping fees. The government estimated that the equivalent of 25 public sectors positions under the umbrella of Alberta Environment and Parks would be eliminated in the 2020-21 fiscal year.
Of parks impacted by closures this year, 10 will be fully closed to the public, impacting 4,490 hectares of provincial land.
... With last week�s budget, the government also announced it identified 164 of its 473 sites for proposed removal from the system.
�Sites removed from the parks system would have their legal park designations removed, and could be open for alternate management approaches,� Alberta Parks stated online.
�This includes potential Park Partnerships through sale or transfer to another entity such as a municipality, so that sites could continue to provide important economic and recreational benefits to local communities. Some of the sites could also stay open under a public lands management model or revert back to vacant public land.�
Do we need an omnibus Alberta austerity thread?
Go for it. And I'd probably be just as angry/bemused as anyone else here at what it is the Uterus Control Party is doing.
So they aren't selling off the Badlands to a mining company or charging a $200 entry fee to Kananaskis. Don't like Kenney or the UCP and didn't vote for them, and won't either in the next round. This issue though? More like a non-issue altogether.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewe ... HYgqK0L4F8
It's even more shocking when this government's stated aim is to more than double tourism in Alberta by 2030:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ ... -1.5339217
The reason lots of tourists, especially internationals tourists, come to this province is for our parks and outdoor activities. Cutting back on this will make it harder to reach that goal of increasing tourism.
I'm willing to sponsor a park in Alberta but I get to name it "Donald Trump Park" for the duration of the sponsorship!
Those signs would get defaced so fast and/or stolen it would make your head spin.