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A town without a home

On February 19, the new Jumbo municipality had its first council meeting.
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Columbia Basin Trust chair Greg Deck (seen here with CBT vice-chair Laurie Page at an RDCK meeting in Nelson in January) is also the incoming mayor of Jumbo Glacier Resort.

On February 19, the new Jumbo municipality had its first council meeting. Mayor Greg Deck, who also chairs the Columbia Basin Trust, called councillors Nancy Hugunin and Steve Ostrander to order for this inaugural meeting held in Radium.

The meeting was not held within Jumbo boundaries for a few reasons. There are no buildings, thus requiring the mayor and council to wear uncomfortable balaclavas and heavy parkas. Also, the road to the glacier isn’t plowed. No one lives there, so plowing the road would be a waste of tax dollars anyhow.

No people, no buildings, just genetically important grizzly bears live on that glacier, and yet it is a municipality with a council ready to make land use decisions. Additionally, they can apply to the Municipal Finance Authority, funded by your tax dollars, for money to build roads, water treatment facilities and other infrastructure that effectively moves the resort forward.

Meanwhile, they are accountable to no one.

This is why local governments are upset about the concept. The Association of Kootenay Boundary Municipalities and the Union of BC Municipalities passed resolutions in 2012 saying that municipalities must have a minimum of 200 permanent residents prior to incorporation. The Regional District of East Kootenay is also disturbed with the idea that members from Jumbo have a seat on the board and can thus influence regional land use decisions. They passed a resolution letting the government know that they oppose the section of the Letters Patent, the legal function to create a municipality, that gives Jumbo a seat at RDEK without residents.

Jumbo’s council was appointed by the legislature’s strongest opponent to a wild Jumbo: Kootenay East MLA and minister for community, sport and cultural development, Bill Bennett. Finding no problems with the lack of democracy in all of this, he responded to my questions in the legislature, saying it’s about jobs (to view the exchange in the legislature, go to michellemungall.ca).

However, there has been economic analysis to suggest that the proposed resort isn’t viable in an area with the highest concentration of ski resorts in North America. I have also heard from many backcountry operators concerned about the negative impacts this resort will have on their businesses and employees. That said, the economic argument isn’t, and never has been, a rational justification for this undemocratic approach to land use decisions.

Hoping to prove this in court, the West Kootenay EcoSociety has taken on the large task of issuing a judicial review on the constitutionality of this municipality with a population of zero. This is now the second judicial reviewed filed against the Liberal government’s push for Jumbo Glacier Resort; the first being the Ktunaxa National Council request for judicial review of the Master Development Agreement issued by the Ministry for Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.

As you can see, there are many people and much information involved in this issue. Yet the most important voices in a democracy are those of the majority. And you’ve said no to a resort on Jumbo Glacier, preferring to keep Jumbo wild.

That’s what I’m working on, one democratic step at a time.

 

Michelle Mungall is the NDP MLA for Nelson-Creston.