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BCAL not ready to shut down backcountry operators

The Dec. 29, 2000 deadline has passed but it will take a few weeks before the B.C. Assets and Lands Corporation will be in a position to start shutting down any commercial backcountry recreation operators who may not have applied for tenure.

The Dec. 29, 2000 deadline has passed but it will take a few weeks before the B.C. Assets and Lands Corporation will be in a position to start shutting down any commercial backcountry recreation operators who may not have applied for tenure.

It will also be several weeks before BCAL will be in a position to comment on the announcement of any new tenures.

BCAL received a rash of applications in the last few days leading up to the cut-off date stipulated as part of the 14-month transition announced in October last year.

The Crown corporation cannot say how many operators did finally apply for licence before the deadline because some of those last-minute applications could be incomplete and may end up not being counted.

As of the end of November, however, only about half of the estimated 100 business operating "illegally" on Crown land in the Sea to Sky region had formally applied for tenure.

Commercial recreation co-ordinator Elisabeth Eldridge said her office received a few more applications in the first half of December but they were incomplete and had to be returned. BCAL was thus expecting a last minute flurry of applications in the days leading up to the deadline.

The corporation is now assessing the proposals that did come in to see which can be deemed to be complete before they can add up the numbers and see who is operating illegally.

"It is not quite as simple as counting up the envelopes," noted BCAL’s David Reilley. "We need to give each of those applications a preliminary technical analysis to determine whether the application is complete. We have to see whether we have been provided with all the information we need in order to go ahead and evaluate the proposal," he said.

"Some of them may have little blanks missing and those we will cut some slack and ask them to fill in the blanks."

For others, it may be a different story.

Operators with applications considered incomplete will be asked to cease doing business on Crown land. Reilley said once BCAL has determined who hasn’t applied, the first step will be to send out letters.

"We hope to be able to make that determination some time this month."

Reilley said BCAL is being extra vigilant in making sure applications are complete so that delays are eliminated when the applications are sent out to the various referral agencies – like local municipalities, the regional district, the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Forests.

"In the past we ran into delays when we made referrals and critical information was missing. So now we are putting a little more effort in the front end, but once we get past the front end we can move more quickly," noted Reilley.

Other efforts to streamline the decision-making process include round table meetings where several referral agencies are gathered together to assess a batch of applicants.

"For example we will do four agencies and four applications in one meeting whereas in the past four agencies doing four applications would mean 16 meetings. That is the kind of efficiency we are developing," said Reilley. "And if we have to do a site inspection we will get the people from those four agencies piled into a helicopter and do the inspection all in one day. But, we can’t go to the table if the referral agencies are going to say some critical piece of information they need to make a decision is not there."

By the time the transition period ends in November this year, the goal is to have all commercial operators on Crown land in Sea to Sky country licensed.

Existing businesses that did apply by the December deadline will be able to continue to operate while their applications are being evaluated, unless their operation is causing serious environmental damage or there is some other major conflict.

Rent will be charged retroactive to Dec. 29, 2000 if their applications are approved after that date.

BCAL has also set a target of April, 2001, by which time it hopes to have made decisions on all applications from existing summer recreation operations so that companies can plan for the coming season. Decisions on applications made for existing winter recreation activities will be made by November, 2002.

BCAL will accept applications for new businesses that haven’t yet started up but they will be last in the queue. Any existing operator who submitted an application deemed to be incomplete by the Dec. 29, 2000 deadline will have to apply along with the new business after November, 2001.

Applications that were made in the last couple of years, before the launch of the transition process, are still moving through the approval process. Reilley said BCAL will be in a position to comment on any new tenures at a media briefing later this month.

He added that since the launch of the transition plan there has been a mood of co-operation. "We haven’t encountered anybody who said, ‘to hell with this, I am not putting in an application’ … everybody had reached a point where they said, ‘yeah, it needs regulating, we are stepping on each others’ toes,’" noted Reilley.

"We are also hearing from other businesses who are not operators but those that are tourism related and deal with the operators. Their feedback to us is that they are getting a sense that the momentum is with compliance."