B.C. PARKS CAMPAIGN BACKGROUND

The campaign against the privatization of BC’s Parks continues.

The BCGEU and coalition partners - the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and the Valhalla Society - staged a public campaign in several BC Parks this past summer. The campaign visited18 parks, obtained close to 3,000 signatures on petitions and garnered considerable media coverage around the province. The campaign's aim is to pressure the Provincial government to rescind the current policy of privatizing our Parks.

Based on the BCGEU's 2005 convention resolution (see below), we are pushing for public funding of parks, proper monitoring and enforcement of Parks regulations, and a moratorium on new lodges or resorts in our provincial parks.

2005 PARKS RESOLUTION (C-115 amended)

WHEREAS the Park Act was amended by the Provincial Liberal government in November, 2003 by adding Section 9.1:

Nothing in Section 8 (2) or 9 (2) prevents the issuance of a park use permit for an activity related to resort or tourism development if, in the Minister’s opinion, the activity and the development are consistent with or complimentary to the recreational values of the park involved; and

WHEREAS the Campbell Liberals are using this amendment to justify and permit exploitation and commercial development in the form of private resorts and lodges inside provincial parks; and

WHEREAS this amendment is driven by the provincial Liberal ideology that parks are a drain on the public purse and must be made to “pay for themselves” by “selling nature to clients”; and

WHEREAS we believe that provincial parks are an inalienable public good to be protected by the Park Act in perpetuity and must not be sold, privatized or commercialized;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the BCGEU through the BC Federation of Labour lobby the provincial political parties and the next and if necessary successive provincial governments to remove Section 9.1 from the Park Act and commit to manage and maintain our parks free of private commercial interests.