Dozens of outdoor organizations and businesses across the province have signed a letter urging B.C.’s new premier to prioritize funding for BC Parks, Recreation Sites and Trails BC, and community-based trail groups in next year’s budget.
Spearheaded by the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC (ORCBC)—whose varied membership includes everyone from BC Marine Trails to the BC Federation of Fly Fishers and BC Snowmobile Federation—the goal was to connect with the newly appointed David Eby.
“We all feel there’s such a desperate need for more interest from the province in solving the urgent problems and nurturing the sector as a whole,” said Louise Pedersen, executive director of the ORCBC. “We really feel outdoor recreation is important to the vast majority of British Columbians.”
An Ipsos survey cited in the letter says that “85 per cent of outdoor recreation participants support more government investment in the development and maintenance of trails, parks and other recreation amenities in the province.”
In the letter, the ORCBC highlights three areas it says most need funding. They include increasing the annual operational budget of Recreation Sites and Trails BC to $20 million and the annual budget of BC Parks to $100 million; amending the Trails Strategy for British Columbia and supporting the implementation of the updated trails strategy; and investing $10 million in a BC Trail Fund to offer community-based organizations support for maintaining local trails.
“Those three requests are our highest priority requests at the moment,” Pedersen said. “In all our interactions with our members we always hear one of the big barriers to any sort of progress is a layer of capacity within BC Parks and, to a greater extent, Rec Sites and Trails BC. They don’t have the capacity to work with trail-based volunteer groups. We need to make sure they’ve got the capacity they need to do a good job planning, managing, and also making sure recreation interests are protected.”
As highlighted in the letter, while Rec Sites and Trails BC oversees 15,000 kilometres of trails and 2,200 rec sites on Crown land, it only has a staff of 50 and an $8-million operating budget.
On the trail maintenance front, ORCBC is advocating for a dedicated fund that could offer money to groups across the province.
“We have talked to the province about that,” Pedersen says. “There seems to be a lot of nodding, ‘We need to do something like that.’ Right now, if you’re a trail group, you’re spending way too much time fundraising when really, as a province, we’re much better off if we can support community-based trail groups with a mechanism [for funding].”
Whistlerite Todd Lawson, who signed the letter on behalf of Mountain Life Magazine, said more support would be welcome for local trail builders.
“Whistler in particular is home to some of the world’s best trail builders,” he wrote in an email. “They are passionate, selfless individuals who should be properly appreciated and compensated for their efforts, full stop. They need financial support to keep adding to this vast and varied network of trails growing responsibly into the future.”
For her part, Pedersen is hopeful Eby will pay attention to their advocacy work.
“We know the finance minister and treasury board are actively looking at all the many recommendations that the select standing committee on finance and government services have made,” she said. “They’re mulling over all these recommendations. It’s about everything under the sun, so right now is a key time to speak up about this.”
To read the full letter, visit orcbc.ca.
