by Anne Sherrod, Valhalla Wi ness iety
As BC conservationists scramble in the wake of a government which wants to lease or mothball the parks, a veteran parks campaigner argues that regional governments are no safe haven.
Franklin Roosevelt was President of the US during the Great Depression and most of World War II. He was generally loved by the poor, the underprivileged and working people, and hated by industry, bankers and business — the very forces that are taking over our world today.
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That,in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power."– Franklin Delanor Roosevelt
The process Mr. Roosevelt described is now taking place in BC's park system, forests, and Forest Service campgrounds. It began when the BC government set about axing them from the provincial budget. From that moment on, the contracting out of parks and campgrounds to private enterprise, or downloading responsibilities onto lower levels of government, round tables and interest groups, was inevitable.
This has put a gun to the heads of people who care about these areas. We are now at the brink of the government signing new 10-year contracts to dole out the operation of "bundles" of parks to private enterprise. The proposals will be scored on a point system. Economic return to the province is one of three criteria to be judged. According to the Request for Proposals: "The proposal with the largest return to the Province based on reasonable and attainable Park Fee revenues will score the maximum points allotted to this section. Proposals with lesser amounts (or requiring a subsidy from the Province) will score less."
Some park defenders have considered submitting proposals to keep out "Big Business." But with the requirement to come up with the capital to manage whole groups of parks, and with the "maximum return to the Province" being one of the criteria, that option has become more repugnant and less likely to succeed.
In desperation, some people believe regional district or municipal control may be the lesser of the evils, a solution for both parks and recreation sites. But just maintaining road access alone would likely be an unmanageable burden and liability to these lower levels of government. These boards have no protection mandate, no land management experience, no professional ecological expertise on their staff, and they do not represent all British Columbians. Private contracts galore would be inevitable. The Park Act would have to be shattered or the parks declassified to allow regional or municipal government control.
Transferring provincial assets to smaller and weaker levels of government makes it easier for private interests to gain control. Only the provincial government has a civil service and an institutional heritage (BC Parks) that remains relatively stable as governments come and go (though that is likewise endangered). With regional districts, the government would be putting parks directly into the hands of a politically-elected board whose members will change frequently. If you have a good regional district rep now, just wait until the next election. Local timber companies, mining companies and commercial tourism developers will be able to elect the people who control park development!
The public was supposed to be able to rest in the belief that these areas were in good hands forever. Why should citizens have to enter politics and get elected to government boards and round tables year after year to safeguard areas that were supposed to be permanently protected? And remember that if you don't live in the region that will be managing your favourite park, you are out of luck.
That very prospect has been promoted by the government and its Recreation Stewardship Panel. We're told that "local control" of these areas will allow environmental groups to protect their park from disrespectful developers and tourists. Anyone taking that seriously should look over their shoulder to see who else is standing in line, expecting increased "local control": the local ATV group, the snowmobile group, the mining interests, the logging interests, the tourism businesses. And when it comes to public-private partnerships, it's the groups with the bucks that will get the deals.
These park transfers would actually disenfranchise thousands of British Columbians from being stake holders in parks and campgrounds that once belonged to them. This is the very process Mr. Roosevelt described: putting control of decision-making into the hands of smaller and more select groups of people.
Tourism Action Society for the Kootenays now has a $325,000 grant to organize a partnership with four regional district boards and various other groups, to manage every single park in the Columbia River Basin. The funding is federal money obtained through the Canadian Tourism Commission. Who can fight or compete with $325,000? Imagine having to go to your local tourism association to stop a golf course in what you thought was a provincial park. Can you imagine the regional boards would not favour the interests of their own business partners?
Each of our protected areas represents years of public debate, expensive scientific studies and government processes. In each case, it was finally decided to dedicate these lands to the highest level of protection, that could only be provided by government representing all British Columbians. Transfers to lower levels of government flout public opinion, disrespect the public processes of this province, and squander the huge resources that went into making the original decisions. They are nothing but unilateral acts of dictatorship that turn history and the principles of democratic government upside-down.
Recently, the new Cariboo Regional District board overturned a decision by the old board to operate Forest Service campgrounds. They said just because the provincial government didn't want to pay for something was no reason why they should have to take it over. How else can anyone call on the provincial government to accept its responsibilities? If we all start accommodating other arrangements for whatever orphans the government wishes to abandon, what can we expect, but to find a 100-year old public institution such as BC Parks on the auction block?
People have written to tell me they despair of turning this around. Indeed, it appears to be fait accompli. But recently someone pointed out to me that, at one point in World War II, Hitler had already conquered all of Europe except Britain and had wreaked the most terrible destruction. Yet everyone involved, from fighter plane pilots and soldiers, to the underground resistance, to Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt, had to keep resisting and fighting with the same intense energy. The whole war was over within five years, and it proved that what looks like fait accompli is not necessarily so when people pull together to fight and resist intensely for what they love.
Today the Allied Forces of the citizens of BC are starting to see that their whole government is drunk behind the wheel of the province. Our role as environmental activists is to keep letting them know that what's happening in parks and recreation sites is part of the carnage. To do that, we must reject the language and actions of accommodation to what is being forced on us, and thrust back in the government's face burdens and losses that are truly intolerable. This is our obligation to future generations.
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[From WS February/March 2003]