How Alberta went from cutting campgrounds to opening new ones in just a few short years
Buying votes or democracy in action? Parsing a stunning turnaround on parks policy
Three years ago, Alberta's UCP government was vigorously defending its plan to close or "delist" 184 provincial parks and recreation areas, in an effort to save $5 million per year.
Last week, Alberta's UCP government was touting a new plan that would see parks infrastructure upgraded and expanded, at a cost of more than $200 million over the next three years.
It's a stunning turnaround in policy in the span of a single government term.
Then again, a lot has happened since 2020, when the parks cuts were proposed: a pandemic, an oil boom, a new premier.
And, now, a looming election.
A cynic might say the sudden spending on parks is nothing more than the government trying to buy votes before Albertans go to the polls in May.
An optimist, by contrast, might say this is democracy in action.
The plan to cut parks was deeply unpopular and sparked a prolonged backlash. After nearly a year of sustained protest in 2020, the government finally relented that December and said no parks would be closed, no campgrounds shut down.
Now, they're taking things in the opposite direction.
"The time has come to build more campsites," Parks Minister Todd Loewen said Thursday at a news conference in Edmonton announcing (or re-announcing) the government's spending plans from its 2023 budget.
How did Alberta go from closing campsites to opening new ones?
Whether you lean toward cynicism or optimism, there's more than just politics at play. Since 2020, there have been some significant changes in the demand for outdoor recreation — and some huge changes in the government's finances — that helped bring Alberta to this moment.
Discovering the outdoors during the pandemic
When COVID-19 arrived, people developed a new appreciation for the outdoors. With schools, offices, bars and restaurants closed, parks became a popular place where people could safely gather.
The trend toward outdoor recreation was seen across Canada, but it was especially noticeable in Alberta.
Calgary declared a state of local emergency on March 15, 2020, ushering in the first of many restrictions on indoor gatherings. The same day, the Alberta government announced all schools and child-care centres would be closed indefinitely.
The very next weekend, huge crowds turned up at wilderness areas just west of Calgary that would normally be relatively sleepy during the still-snowy period of early spring.
The trend only grew as summer arrived.
Initially, the government tried to obscure the fact that visitation numbers were booming — even at the campgrounds slated for closure or "to be removed from the parks system."
The province had repeatedly described these sites as "under-utilized," but the numbers, when they eventually came out via a freedom-of-information request, contradicted this narrative.
(It should be noted that, prior to pandemic, it's not like parks visitation was dwindling. Even at the sites slated for closure or removal from the parks system, the province's data showed modest increases, year after year, from 2016 to 2019.)
Today, by contrast, the government trumpets the numbers it used to shy away from.
"In recent years, the population of outdoor recreation has skyrocketed," deputy premier Kaycee Madu said at Thursday's press conference on the parks spending.
Of course, it's a lot easier now for the government to be in a spending mood.
Riding the resource roller-coaster
Back in March 2020, then premier Jason Kenney used one of his regular Facebook Live video chats to address criticism over his government's plan to cut parks.
In response to a question from a viewer named Jan, he said Alberta — which was then facing an $8-billion deficit — couldn't afford to keep spending money on small campgrounds and recreation areas.
"Here's the bottom line, Jan … if we don't reduce our spending in some areas to balance the budget, we'll be spending billions more of your tax dollars on interest payments to bankers and rich bond holders," Kenney said.
"Either we bite the bullet now with some modest, responsible restraint to get the deficit under control or we just blow it out. We pretend that money is free and taxpayers don't ever have to pay the bill at the end of the day. And that's not the reality."
But the reality would soon change, dramatically.
Oil and gas royalties swung from a paltry $3 billion in the 2020-21 fiscal year to a stunning $16 billion the next, and then a record-breaking $27.5 billion the year after that.
That was the year Kenney resigned.
New premier, looming election
When Premier Danielle Smith was sworn in last October, she inherited a government treasury more flush with cash than it's been in decades.
The idea of closing parks in order to save $5 million per year must have looked very different through this new fiscal lens. The Alberta government was now earning that much money from oil and gas royalties every 90 minutes.
Smith even mused about killing another Kenney-era policy: the Kananaskis Conservation Pass, a $90 annual fee for accessing the rugged mountain region west of Calgary.
The fee has been unpopular among many Calgarians, and the city is widely seen as the key battleground in the upcoming election. Could making Kananaskis free again be enough to swing some critical votes?
Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley has already promised to scrap the Kananaskis pass if her party is returned to government in May. For her part, Smith has put the pass under review.
Add it all up, and the UCP government's stance toward parks, in general, is remarkably different now than it was earlier in the government's term.
So, is the sudden change of heart a cynical ploy to buy votes with the latest oil-and-gas windfall? Or is it evidence that democracy is working, that the government has listened to the public and adjusted its policies accordingly?
'Cautiously optimistic'
Tim Johnson, program co-ordinator with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, leans toward the more optimistic interpretation.
He notes the turnaround on campgrounds and recreation areas isn't the only recent example of the Alberta government changing course on issues that affect our natural spaces.
When it came to plans to ramp up coal exploration in the Rockies and Foothills, he points out, the province also backtracked on its initial plans following an intense public outcry.
"I would like to think that the province is listening to Albertans, in the sense of them speaking up for their parks and speaking up for their mountains," Johnson said.
"So yeah, I'd say I'm cautiously optimistic while also recognizing that the timeline we're in is coming up to an election, which is certainly not something to dismiss."
Still, he says, a lot remains unknown about the province's long-term plans for parks, especially after the decision to split the former Environment and Parks ministry in two and roll many functions into the new Ministry of Forestry, Parks and Tourism.
Managing parks always means walking a fine line: balancing access with wilderness, visitation with conservation. No policy will ever satisfy everyone's preference for how our shared natural spaces ought to be used.
The debate over the past few years has been vigorous, indicating how much these issues matter to Albertans.
Given how the government has shown a willingness to shift its policies quite dramatically in the wake of a public outcry, and the fact that these issues are already cropping up in the budding election campaign, we can expect that debate to continue.
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