Wildsight questions Jumbo land tenure
November 21, 2009 by Wildsight
Filed under BC government, Business, Environment, Local government, Local news, Nature, Recreation
Glacier Resorts travesty leaves taxpayers on the hook — who knew? Public investigation bears strange fruit as silt, gravel, sewage and gas spills into Farnham Creek.
A year and a half ago, Glacier Resorts Ltd. started punching a road through the alpine to access what public groups are calling a “dubious tenure” to parts of the Farnham Glacier, located 67 kilometres into the Invermere backcountry.
The action has left the area with considerable environmental damage. Members of the public have noted several infractions in the contested area—each caused by actions taken by Glacier Resorts and/or its contractors.
Public watchdogs have documented a long-term diesel spill and an outhouse that has “melted” into the creek bed, among other damages. The proponent’s road—constructed without permit and not engineered to withstand alpine erosion—has caused hundreds of cubic metres of silt and gravel to wash across the alpine and into Farnham Creek. In addition, the temporary access road to the tenure has not been controlled—the gate has been repeatedly left open, allowing uncontrolled ORV access to the critical grizzly and goat habitat in alpine of Farnham Creek.
“If Glacier Resorts cannot even manage a temporary tenure without environmental destruction, how can they be expected to run a mega-resort?” asked Dave Quinn, Wildsight’s Purcells program manager.
Quinn said that the public has been forced to investigate these damages: “There seems to be insufficient government resources—and insufficient will—to effectively monitor remote tenures like this. It has taken three months and many letters for the Ministry of Environment to launch a formal investigation into it, during which time the environmental degradation has continued unabated.”
Arnor Larson, a local mountain guide, decided to look into what was happening in the area and sent several letters to ministers Kevin Krueger and Barry Penner. Larson wanted to know how the tenure came to be awarded with no public notice and how the damage will be addressed.
What he learned was disturbing.
“The License of Occupation given to Glacier Resorts clearly states they are responsible for deactivating and blocking access on their temporary road at the end of every season—but this never happened,” Larson said. “The gate is removed and people just haul the blocks out of the way or remove the gate for access.”
The worst part, according to Larson and Quinn, is that Glacier Resorts’ arrangement with the Province stipulates a meagre yearly “rental fee” of just $500 dollars for 1,415 hectares of land—with no security deposit at all.
“This drop-in-the-bucket fee for the use of Crown Land doesn’t cover even one inspection trip by the Province to this remote tenure—and there is no security funding to ensure that the environment is looked after if the proponent causes damage to Crown lands, as has happened in this case,” Quinn said.
“How are we supposed to believe Glacier Resorts will be able to manage 6,000 hectares of melting glaciers in the heart of the Purcells safely—when they can’t even handle the basics like outhouses and road building?”
Quinn and Larson take cold comfort that the Province of B.C. is now investigating the environmental damages: “The investigation is done wholly at the expense of taxpayers,” Quinn said.
“This proponent has again revealed a lack of respect for public process and the environment,” Quinn said. “For twenty years, Glacier Resorts did not even bother to apply to the RDEK for rezoning that would have allowed public process—instead, they quietly negotiated a tenure on Farnham Glacier in 2007 with no pub lic process or notice, and then started building a road and ski lift in the alpine in summer 2008, again with no authorization we know of, no zoning permits, and no public notice.
“That leaves the public with no reason to believe that the wilderness, watersheds and wildlife of the upper Jumbo Valley will be stewarded as a ‘green’ destination by these developers. What’s more, the residents—whose voices were voted into silence by the RDEK—are on the hook to pay for damages the developer is already causing to this area.”
Invermere
November 20, 2009
Wildsight
Please understand a very simple fact Shanna and don’t be swayed by those that would see demons in the church all the time.
Nationalization of the Bank of Canada? What does that really mean? That simply means that it – the Bank of Canada, is now one entity under the control of the Canadian Government exactly similar to ICBC which was mentioned in an earlier blog they are both one entity under one government. They both take input from industry and knowledgble people and institutions. So why not? If some one knows more than me, why would I not take their advise and direction. I listen to my lawyer and my accountant and my ditch digger. It is then up to me to either take that advise or not take that advise and direction.
That fact of Nationailization alone negates everything that Lynn stated in both of her / his blogs about the Bank of Canada and that you are trying to rationalize with your words and in support her outrageous statements.
The bank was nationalized, it has not been privatized. If it had been privatized, then Possibly and only possibly could the USA Federal Bank come close to owning may be 5% of the B of C. 97% / 95% 50%, all are numbers thrown into the wind by you and Lynn that carry zero weight. That is why that whole fear mongering of, the USA / government / big business/ big unions are all going to softly take over Canada and all our institutions are really like chaff in the wind. .
No matter how you split a hair, it still comes out as an insignificant matter in the whole head of hair. It is still one split hair where twenty thousand reside. It’s all on your head.
Enough homilies now Walter.
Really, Shanna, Lynn, think logically about things here and in all your ruminations in the woods. The world, governement, business, unions are not out to shaft / bankrupt / mess with your mind / ad nosium (sp?).
They exist, they try to do what is best for the overall population. They take their lumps and they take their cudos.
Walter, Can you back up your claim that the Bank of Canada was ‘nationalized’ in 1938? And can you show that it was also de-privatized? In fact, can you show us ANYTHING about who exactly owns the bank and how in actual practice it is controlled?
I suspect you cannot because, like most others, you believe what you have been told without verifying it for yourself in sufficient depth.
I am looking for concrete evidence that the Bank of Canada is owned and controlled by the government and cannot find that. All I find is the oft-mouthed statement that it was ‘nationalized’ – period, end of story. But what exactly does that mean and what is the actual state of affairs? The current Bank of Canada Act does not support the statement that the bank was nationalized, unless they are using that word in a very unusual way.
These questions are relevant because, despite the rhetoric of national control it certainly appears in the real world like the government either does not have control, has it but does not use it, or has delegated it to others.
I would like to know, and I’m sure others would too. So please don’t just brush the question aside. This matter is as important now as it was in 1933 – perhaps more so.
I thought you might be interersted in this;
http://www.durangotelegraph.com/telegraph.php?inc=/09-12-10/mountain.htm
Telluride shifts away from real estate
TELLURIDE – After seeing the real estate-based economy crash, Telluride is ready to embrace a visitor-based economy. But just what that visitor-based economy looks like isn’t entirely clear.
TheTelluride Daily Planet reports that a task force has been convened to examine the options.
“Overdependence on housing starts- and housing sales-based economy is not sustainable,” San Miguel County Commissioner Joan May said at a recent gathering devoted to the community’s future economic foundation. “It has not proved to be resilient or sustainable either for the community or the environment.”
But tourism has its deficiencies, too. Mike Rozycki, planning director for the county, questioned whether tourism would furnish the community with enough high-paying jobs to live in Telluride.
Another question involves seasonality. Despite the best efforts, most ski towns remain essentially that. Summer business has perked up, and in some places, the shoulder seasons have become somewhat lively. But winter overshadows all else.
Seth Cagin, publisher ofThe Telluride Watch, says ski resorts within driving distance of major metropolitan areas are different than destination resorts such as Sun Valley and Telluride, which are well off the beaten path.
“Figuring out the model for high-end destination resorts in remote locations – I am not sure anyone has that completely dialed in,” said Cagin. “But I think the recession has provided plenty of evidence that while real estate sales and development will undoubtedly be part of the solution, they can’t be the dominant feature.”
He also said that the dramatic economic decline in Telluride also proves that the community, contrary to its self-perception as a place of enlightenment, still has some things to learn.
Bob Delves, the mayor of Mountain Village, noted that the task force got together on the assumption that “our community is not broken, but it could be.”
NOTE that remote destination resorts don’t appear to have figured out their economic model yet in the new economic enviroment.
The closer a resort is to a major center the more viable it is bcause it can rely on “rubber tired visitors”.
~Endangered.
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I came across another ski resort model that people might be interested in here;
http://shamesmtncoop.com/
Here’s the idea;
Shames Mountain Co-op is a business model built on the collaborative spirit of local and global snow enthusiasts alike. Members work together to build an outdoor playground that provides a great overall mountain experience for its shareholders and guests.
Alongside the local communities of Terrace, Prince Rupert and Kitimat, British Columbia, the collective energy of the global snow community is working in a collaborative, transparent, and forward-thinking manner for the greater good of Shames Mountain.
All decisions will be made based on what is best for the community, environment and guests.
For $500 a share, you can become a part of a grass roots, forward thinking movement. The Co-op will work together to assure a viable business model that solidifies access to a mountain playground enhanced with a 480 inch average of yearly snowfall, an exceptionally high ratio of great ski days, and 8,730 acres of tenured ski acreage.
All interested shareholders are encouraged to read over the Mission Statement, Code of Ethics and Core Values. If you share the SMC vision, please visit the message board and let the ideas flow! This is a collaborative work in progress. By combining our collective expertise, Shames Mountain Co-op is raising the standard on how a ski area should be owned and operated.
On behalf of all of us who have already committed ourselves to this goal, we invite you to join us on our mission.
Shames Mountain Co-op, Powder for the People!
Co-ops…our world competitors will be shaking in their boots at the thought of competing with co-ops! I’m sure Karl MARX would approve…
Endangered, are you suggesting that we in the Columbia Valley should take a hint from this co-op and build Jumbo ourselves? Take the whole thing out of the hands of the very capable and environmentally responsible owners and developers who have patiently endured all the environmental red tape for nearly twenty years?
Even if we wanted to do this, we can’t even get together on the smallest detail. We are a bunch of 5-year-olds scrapping over who’s the winner of this insane nonsense.
When we can grow up sufficiently to see that we have to play nicely together, maybe we could actually pull off some project that would benefit us all. In the meantime, dream on, friend.
The latest disturbing article I’ve read on Jumbo here;
http://thetyee.ca/News/2009/10/26/JumboSkiMunicipality/
Jumbo Ski Resort Carves New Legal Tracks
$450 million East Kootenay project could be a ‘municipality’ before it gets a single resident.
By Bill Metcalfe, 26 Oct 2009, TheTyee.ca
British Columbia’s East Kootenay region is close to having a major, $450 million ski resort in its midst. The project is on its way to pioneering a new legal definition of a city as well — a “mountain resort municipality” capable of existing for years without elected officials or even any residents.
This latest twist in the 18-year effort to build the Jumbo Glacier resort in the Purcell Mountains west of Invermere has added fuel to local anger towards the development, while raising new questions about democracy and accountability in local government.
On August 4 the Regional District of East Kootenay (RDEK) decided it doesn’t want the final say in whether the Jumbo real estate development proposal will go ahead, asking the provincial government to take over instead. The RDEK also wants the province to turn Jumbo into a mountain resort municipality.
That decision followed a meeting about Jumbo earlier in the summer between the RDEK board and Bill Bennett, the minister of community services and rural development. Bennett is the MLA for Kootenay East and an avid Jumbo supporter. Several RDEK board members have declined to tell The Tyee what happened at that meeting with Bennett, saying the meeting was in-camera. And Bennett did not respond to a request for information about it. …….
….What is a mountain resort municipality?
The Jumbo proposal is now in legally unmapped territory because the legislation that creates mountain resort municipalities is vague and untested.
A mountain resort municipality can be instantly created by the provincial government under Section 11 of the Local Government Act if there is a resort plan in place (which there is in this case). The new municipality would be governed by provincial government appointees until the general voting day for the first election of members to the municipal council. The legislation does not say how large the population must be for an election to be held, or how the physical boundaries of the new municipality would be determined. If the resort were built it is hard to say how many year-round residents it would have, or how soon. How would the priorities of the resort development plan already in place be reconciled with the priorities of an eventually elected council? The legislation gives the province a lot of leeway because it allows for the government to “make exceptions from statutory provisions.”….
….Following the motion at the August meeting, it occurred to some RDEK members that with a mountain resort municipality at Jumbo, the RDEK could end up with an unelected government appointee voting on East Kootenay issues. So at its next meeting in September 2009, the RDEK unanimously passed a motion that “if a resort municipality is established in the Jumbo Valley, such a municipality should not be granted a seat on the RDEK Board until such time as there is population of sufficient number to elect a governing council.”
Bill Bennett’s involvement
As the province’s minister of community services and rural development, Bill Bennett has significant influence over the project because it is his ministry that would designate Jumbo a mountain resort municipality. …..
My question is, why the rush to become A “Resort Municipality”? Besides the subsidy of Crown land for only $5,000 per acres; will they not be able to apply for Municipal infrastructure funding a lot sooner than they would be able to otherwise? If this hypothesis is true then this well connected Resort would be competing with other existing municipalities for this funding. This Government Appointed or possible Corporate Municipality will also have influence on the Regional District as mentioned in the article and at the UBCM convention as well. This new legal entity would also possess the power of taxation within it’s boundaries.
~Endangered.
In 1991 BC had a new NDP Government, and an existing process (CASP) for proposed resorts to receive approval. The Jumbo proponent began this process – then the NDP Government created CORE – a Commission to decide on local land uses – by locals.
The proponent was not obligated to enter CORE. They participated in good faith, as the NDP stated that CORE would help JGR; a favourable result meant there was local support & provide a decision on land use – an unfavourable one would kill it.
CORE was made up of local environmentalists, business, hunting, forestry, tourism, first nations, mining; et al. CORE would provide land use certainty for industries assuring environmental and economic sustain ability for the region. As a result of CORE parks were approved and created.
Wouldn’t overturning CORE’s decision on Jumbo also invalidate parks created as a result of CORE? CORE has given mining and forestry certainty regarding where they can exploit resources – as a result of CORE – they have been able to move forward.
CORE answered the question of local support of Jumbo – otherwise why proceed any further with their application? CORE specifically approved JGR by a 18-4 vote. That appears to be why 8 RDEK Directors voted yes – they saw no need to redo the CORE & EAO reviews.
CORE and the EAO answered the question of land use and local support. Local opponents participated in CORE and the EAO review – losing both. In response they looked for a way to destroy & discredit CORE and the EAO results = have the RDEK do it.
Opponents wanted to intimidate local politicians into destroying decades of local participation by killing CORE & the EAO decisions. The real reason opponents want the RDEK to handle the Jumbo land re-zoning – is not to review it fairly – it’s to arbitrarily kill it.
Polls paid for by WildSight that are claimed to be “statistically valid” can still be manipulated – the time of the call alone manipulates the results. Polls paid for by the proponent – no matter how “statistically valid” – would not be accepted by opponents.
Nory ESTEBAN argued the Area “F” poll was more accurate than the BC Election results, due to higher poll participation, but who were all these extra people participating? They were non-local 2nd home owners from Alberta!? If there is 80-90 % opposition, why are there only 2000 signatures on their worldwide petition? Doesn’t add up does it…
In every Provincial election since Jumbo was first proposed, the pro Jumbo candidate has won in the local areas. Which is why Mr. ESTEBAN declared: “To assume that the results of a provincial election…were specific to Jumbo Glacier Resort is a huge misinterpretation.”
MLA Norm MacDONALD’s only major campaign issue locally was his opposition to Jumbo – he gambled and lost – now they want to disconnect the results. MacDONALD lost Area “F” and he lost, Windermere, Fairmont, Radium and only barely winning Invermere.
Hi Endangered,
Are you new or something?? This argument was waged and lost by the opposition back in August. A local fellow and a guy from Kimberly both waged war on the entire democratic process and claimed they’d have the heads of the RDEK for ’suppressing the voice of the people.” You should have been there Endangered, it was very dramatic!! The fellow from Kimberly, with all the fervor of a kid in a kids after school special proclaimed to the world that he would take his mighty petition to the RDEK head-on garnering an estimated whopping 5,000 local signatures and force them to turn a blind eye to the wishes of their constituents and reverse their own democratically arrived upon decision. Sadly (or comically) in the end the mighty roar of the people fell pathetically short of their ominous goal by 4,400 signatures. Only 550 people signed in the 4 months it was on line…sorry Steve! Most of the signatories on this petition already signed the failed Doug and Bob petition yet I am sure that they will still claim over 1,000 folks signed. Hell they couldn’t even muster up the folks that usually bitch alongside them to sign!! The RDEK voted to support this motion. The directors carried forth the wishes of the folks that elected them. Yet, here we are months later still flogging the same old dead horse…why? The process is sound and was carried forth democratically. You don’t get to change the rules of the game just because you don’t like the score. The appointed council and the advisory group that will represent the new Mountain Resort Municipality will be selected from local citizens of the Kootenays. Isn’t this what you opposers wanted all along…local representation? Now there will be a local council representing, you don’t like who they will be because they will, very obviously, support the project. You people don’t function on reason…you don’t play fair and you will say anything and stop at nothing to squash this project. The latest BS from Quinn and Larson proves my point perfectly…they will knowingly and openly lie to try and fool an unknowing public…bad form indeed!
Happy googling Endangered…we’ll all be on the edge of our seats to hear what some other small town editor has to say about the state of the nation! And I’m sure you’ll tout it around the gospel truth like you have so many other times above! Don’t you remember the ninny that we had editing out local paper for years? Do you think we could have held anything he said as accurate reporting or truth? NO, yet guys like you will always be there to make these glorified high school newspaper editors out to be news makers…not reporters.
Good Luck!
In the case of being disturbed by an article in The Tyee, I wholeheartedly agree.
Repeating alarmist, nonsensical and inflammatory fiction is typical for those who really have no sense of what the reality of the situation is.
If you are reading said nonsense and are not either shaking your head or laughing out loud, I am sorry.
Out here the likes of Metcalfe and Mair are taken with the same grain of salt as Quinn and Cobb.
Endangered? !!!!!! You are not really reading that rag called the Tyee are you??????
That has been shown for years to be such a alarmist, fear mongering publication, that any one with a lick of brains has given up on those radicals years ago.
Should read something real, like the National Lampoon. That in and of itself tells it like it really is, a spoof. The Tyee doesn’t even know that it is just that – a spoof.
Here’s another great article for you. Do we really need another ski resort? article is here; http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20091129/ASPENWEEKLY06/911259964/1078/RSS
“Of course, Bitterroot Resort is only the most recent of high profile, ski-area collapses. Only four new ski areas have opened in the United States in the past 20 years: The Yellowstone Club and Moonlight Basin in Big Sky, Mont.; Tamarack Resort in central Idaho; and Silverton Mountain in southwestern Colorado. Only Silverton was designed primarily for skiers, and only Silverton has avoided bankruptcy. Until the mid-’90s, ski resorts were almost always created for skiers. Real estate was still big business, but developers built ski areas only where they made sense in terms of quality skiing. Then developers got greedy and saw the avalanche of money that could be made from selling second homes. Four-season resorts, where homeowners could ski in winter and golf, hike and bike in summer, became the way to cash in.
Developers bet heavily on rising real estate prices, and the gamble worked for about five years. In that time, developers’ dreams grew even more grandiose as they borrowed more and more money to build master-planned communities around the bases of new ski resorts.
Last year, the bubble burst. Developers who’d been riding high months earlier face-planted and found themselves with a mountain of half-built houses. The developers’ business model depended on rich people buying million-dollar mini-mansions they might use for, maybe, two months a year. Without a constant influx of capital from the sale of homes, resort developers defaulted on their loans. Creditors, realizing they wouldn’t get paid back, started foreclosing. Ultimately, the Big Three toppled.
The Yellowstone Club resort is now owned by a new investor, who bought it for dimes on the dollar. Tamarack Resort is owned by creditors and may not open for skiing this year. Moonlight Basin declared bankruptcy in mid-November to avoid a takeover by Lehman Bros. The Yellowstone Club won’t close anytime soon, however: The gated resort for the mega-rich will continue to operate as long as its homes are owned by the likes of Bill Gates, Dan Quayle and Warren Miller. Likewise, Moonlight will probably survive in some form, simply because the resort, in addition to building real estate, has built one heck of a ski area. Its proximity to Big Sky Resort doesn’t hurt either, drawing skiers to what’s marketed as “The Biggest Skiing in America.”
Tamarack is skating on thin ice, however, as it never really had the support of the locals. It’s too far from Boise, the nearest mid-sized city, to draw many day skiers, and it lacks particularly good skiing. Tamarack may be doomed.
Meanwhile, the remote town of Silverton, with its one lift, keeps plugging away, buoyed by a legion of devoted extreme skiers, minimal operating expenses and little borrowed capital.
Silverton even added infrastructure this year — a 50-foot bus. It replaces the old UPS truck that used to shuttle skiers. Might there be a lesson here?
Will Melton is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Montana in Missoula. ”
Sounds like a pretty tough market to be trying to build a Remote Resort in. When the crash came here, Three of the Revelstoke mountain resort owners had their shares reduced from 75 percent to 10 percent (ouch!). Contractor were only paid percentages of what they were owed and this lead to bankruptcies and Nick Faldo sued the resort over non-payment of the contract (missed payment).
~Endangered
“More Mumbo Jumbo” http://www.skicanadamag.com/Features/Columnists/WesternView/2005/12/21/1362094.html
Yeah? So?
There is nothing in this article that has any bearing on a successful and environmentaly cognicant organization such as Jumbo Glacier Resort nor the environmental cudos that are accumulating in response to the Environmental Assessment committments the proponent has committed to.
The article has absolutely nothing to do with the marketing of a world class facility which is what can occur for JGR or the people of Invermere and areas.
Your article is just another example of some one who was published in another rag. Just because it is published, does not mean it is meaningful or truthful. But mostly, it just is not relevant to reality.
Just look at Wildsite, Quinn and Larson’s latest rendition of the truth. They have been shown to be so far off the reality mark as to be frightening in regards to Jumbo Glacier Resort. I will give Quinn credit, he is pushing a rock uphill with some success in the overall environmental big business he is involved in. Unfortunately, he, Wildsite, the other protest group have become so ensconsed in their fight fight fight attitude, they have destroyed their credibility regarding Jumbo and areas.
As stated a number of times by a number of different people, their mistruths and fear mongering tend to define their character don’t they ?
The rest of the Columbia Valley seems to think so.
Endangered AKA Google-Master…you don’t now and have never made sense. The World Wide Web is a big place. If you google long enough you can always find some radical that has penned some article that backs you strain of BS. You have done a great job of this and absolutely nothing else. You win! Congrats!
Your BS=square peg JGR=Round hole…get it!
Jumbo is a bad idea, its unsafe for regular skiing, Invermere already has too many jobs, company’s can’t find employees, Jumbo is in the middle of almost untouched glaciers. I just really hope they never go ahead with this resort, it will be the downfall of this beautifull area. The Columbia Valley is already over run with tourists, there is not even 1 single 24 hour store in the valley mostly due to the lack of staff, lack of staff due to so many tourists and not enough residents!
Gee Russel – it was a shame your points were not raised during the 10 years of reviews? NOT. Everything proposed at Jumbo is in oepration every day at several resorts highly profitable resorts in Europe – proven technology at work.
By the way there is an active mining claim in the valley – if not Jumbo Ski area when the economy tanks I wonder who will stop the mine – and the clear cutting of the valley is ongoing.
Here’s and older article from Maclean’s “A long cold winter ahead” BC could end up running a lot of skihills”. Here’s the link;
http://www2.macleans.ca/2008/10/30/a-long-cold-winter-ahead/
A long cold winter ahead
B.C.’s government could wind up running the ski hills
by Nancy Macdonald on Thursday, October 30, 2008 12:00am – 7 Comments
Not a single snowflake has fallen on Whistler, but the famed B.C. resort town is already feeling a chill. Last week, Fortress Investment Group, the New York-based hedge fund that owns Intrawest ULC, Whistler-Blackcomb’s parent company, narrowly averted bankruptcy. After a week of fierce speculation that Fortress would fail to make a deal, an 11th-hour package to refinance its $1.7 billion in Intrawest debt came through. But the relief may be short-lived.
Over the past two decades, B.C. has become a paradise for skiers, snowboarders and outdoor enthusiasts. But many feel that thanks to a host of threats, Whistler’s close call is just the beginning, and the province’s resort boom could turn into a bust. The industry has kept on opening new hills and building new resorts even as skier numbers have flattened, and the visitor demographic is aging quickly. As the global economy slows, B.C.’s many resorts and condo developments may be facing an ugly awakening.
The most immediate threat facing the industry comes from an impending global recession. Americans in particular have been hit hard by the financial crisis, and a full quarter of Whistler’s visitors are from the U.S. Already, the local tourist board is predicting a 12 per cent decline in visits this season. But a worrisome, longer-term threat is on the horizon too. As today’s skiers age, they’re not being replaced by younger blood. Ridership on B.C. ski lifts peaked at 6.2 million in the winter of 2001-2002, and within the next decade, skier visits are projected to drop by half a million. These days, when the toques come off, you’re likely to see a head full of grey hair; the average skier age is 40, and getting older each year.
Oddly enough, though, fewer skiers may not be the industry’s biggest problem. That’s because the ski industry doesn’t make much money from skiing anymore, says Paul Kedrosky, a California-based CNBC analyst and editor of the Infectious Greed business blog. Ski hills are intrinsically not that profitable, he explains. They have massive, fixed costs due to snow-making and daily run maintenance, plus the army of staff who run the lifts, day lodges, parking lots and ski patrols. So lift-ticket revenue, which brings in $50 to $60 a head for less than six months of the year, isn’t the real money-maker. “The dirty secret of the ski industry is that there isn’t a ski industry,” says Kedrosky. “It’s a real-estate industry.” And indeed, in 2006, real-estate profits alone made up two-thirds of Intrawest’s $268-million operating profit.
Since much of the money in the ski industry now comes from selling property, it’s no surprise that as real estate has boomed in B.C., so have the hills. Adding fuel to the fire, the province has “incentivized” resort-sector development, says an official with the resort development branch of B.C’s Tourism Ministry. Not only does the province subsidize the industry with cheap land, priced at $5,000 per acre for the first 10 years, but the 1985 Commercial Alpine Ski Policy stipulates that if a ski hill goes bankrupt, or the owners walk away, the province is required to step in and run the resort until a buyer can be found.
Given all those incentives, it’s no surprise that over the past five years, the local ski industry has undertaken its biggest expansion ever. Less than a year ago, the province’s newest billion-dollar hill, Revelstoke Mountain Resort, opened for business. Four B.C. resorts are currently undergoing complete overhauls, and just last week, developers cut ribbon at an all-season resort in the northern B.C. town of Smithers. Three more developments are pending approval, including Jumbo Glacier, a controversial $450-million project near Invermere, whose 20 lifts will allow year-round skiing on a series of glaciers in wilderness terrain, and Juliet Creek, a resort slated for the Coquihalla Pass, a two-hour drive from downtown Vancouver.
When Victoria agreed to backstop the industry in 1985, B.C. had a smattering of low-key mom-and-pop hills. Now the province is standing behind an industry worth several billion dollars, and as Whistler’s close call showed, parts of that industry are on shaky ground.
As long as boomers were snapping up holiday properties in B.C., and the province’s ski hills were choked with Brits and Americans, the ski industry was a money machine. When Revelstoke’s first two condo projects hit the market 18 months ago, they sold out in three hours. But what will happen if B.C.’s real estate market hits the skids? Resort properties are particularly prone to real-estate busts—when money gets tight, the holiday home in the mountains is the first to go. Because of this, Kedrosky believes the “perfect storm” could be about to hit. And it won’t be one of those helpful storms that dumps a layer of killer powder. It could be the nastiest storm B.C.’s ski hills have ever seen.
The CASP process was good in it’s day as was the Guaranteed backing to run the resorts; it was a subsidy in the fact that it allowed the Industry to borrow money at a reduced rate because of the reduced risk.
~ Endangered
Endangered wrote; “many feel that thanks to a host of threats, Whistler’s close call is just the beginning, and the province’s resort boom could turn into a bust.”
Whistler is a failure? That is news to the UN which gave awards to Whistler – calling Whistler one of the best communities in the world to live and work.
Whistler is hugely profitable – it was sold at an extremely high price, which is proof itself that it is profitable – and then the buyer was caught in a global recession means nothing about the success of Whistler or skiing.
Endangered went on; “The industry has kept on opening new hills and building new resorts even as skier numbers have flattened, and the visitor demographic is aging quickly. As the global economy slows, B.C.’s many resorts and condo developments may be facing an ugly awakening.”
As an example of what you imply: if they have almost stopped building homes in the USA…there will never be a need for homes? Pretty ridiculous stuff…but typical of opponents arguments.
Despite every possible argument by every environmental group thorwn at it, Jumbo succeeded through all the reviews. Everything Endangered wrote above was said 10 years ago – it was found wrong then and it is wrong now.
I guess we should just give up and live in ghettos outside Vancouver – since we can’t all raise bees in the Elk Valley…and even Fort MacMurray isn’t hiring.
Endangered keep on distorting the truth – you are, again and again, helping to show that there isn’t a sound argument against Jumbo. Keep it coming…
Grizzlies prefer Gondolas!
Published 2009-10-07 16:06:24
Whistler lobbies against Squamish ski resort
Several questions about resort’s economic viability brought to ministers at UBCM
By Alison Taylor
Whistler’s leaders are continuing to raise red flags with provincial ministers about the impacts of a proposed ski resort on its doorstep.
The Garibaldi at Squamish proposal was a hot item for Mayor Ken Melamed and councillors at last week’s Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) convention and part of an overall plea to the province to ensure Whistler’s economic viability in the long term.
Melamed said there’s a perception elsewhere in B.C. that Whistler is doing well, reaping rewards from the 2010 Olympics and prospering.
But Whistler is feeling the pressures of the global economic downturn just like everyone else, as evidenced by the decreased occupancy in resort hotel rooms and what he calls the “deep discounting” of room rates.
“It suggests that Whistler has a lot of work to do before it gets to economic stability and we’re going to need the province’s support to get back to that place,” said the mayor.
He asked for that support not only by stressing the importance of the hotel tax, which flows back to Whistler from the province, but also in the opposition of a proposed brand new ski resort just down the highway.
“We’re quite confident in saying that we think that (Garibaldi at Squamish) provides a significant risk not just to Whistler but to the tourism economy of British Columbia,” said the mayor this week.
The impacts of the Squamish ski resort were part of three separate discussions with ministers – Colin Hansen, minister of finance, Kevin Krueger, minister of tourism, culture and arts, and Bill Bennett, minister of community and rural development – during the weeklong UBCM convention. MLA Joan McIntyre also attended the meetings.
“We suggested to the ministers, let’s give the emerging resorts a chance to build their visitor numbers and allow Whistler to get a chance to rebuild its visitor numbers up to a viable economic level,” said Melamed.
“Adding more capacity into what we perceive to be over capacity of existing resorts and those existing resorts not on sound economic footing, seems to be counter productive.”
Their case to the ministers included statistics showing Whistler’s year-round occupancy at 55 per cent or less. The mayor said they’ve been told by the hotel sector that a viable economic level is around 65 per cent. He also cautioned that today’s occupancy numbers are based on a time when there’s deep discounting of hotel rooms.
The lobbying around Garibaldi at Squamish was part of a bigger picture message to the province about Whistler’s long-term economic viability.
“I’d say Whistler’s opinions are valued,” said McIntyre. “They’re taken seriously.
“I think there was an emphasis made on Whistler being a partner with the province in figuring out how we go forward, and emphasizing Whistler’s long-term contribution to tourism and to our goals of doubling tourism revenues.”
Another item up for discussion was the importance of the hotel tax, both the two per cent additional hotel tax and the four per cent resort municipalities transfer tax.
Roughly $10 million flows from the province back to Whistler from this hotel tax annually.
The way that tax is collected will be changing on July 1, 2011 when the new Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) is introduced. Whistler wanted to stress to the ministers the importance of that money to the resort and ensure a smooth transition for collecting that tax.
“Obviously Whistler wants to make sure that the progress they’ve made on financial tools and hotel taxes and all those things are still kept whole, which is what we were intending to do, and I think there’s some real opportunities for Whistler to take a leadership in some of those efforts,” said McIntyre.
While municipal leaders passed a vote at the convention asking Premier Gordon Campbell to abandon the HST, Whistler asked the ministers to take a broad look at how any taxation changes could affect resorts.
“What we really stressed was that the province take an overarching approach of understanding Whistler’s vulnerability and finding ways to ensure our continued success,” said Melamed.
That includes dealing with the fallout of the Class 1/6 issue. Two years ago the province changed the way taxes are assessed on condo-hotels. It has never resolved however, the unintended consequence of that decision which affects customer service levels. In other words, some condo-hotels are without a front desk, are managed by several management companies and often this results in poor customer service.
The mayor also had a chance to meet with Mary Polak, the minister responsible for childcare, about some of the challenges Whistler families are facing with the lack of spaces for children at daycare and the increased costs.
Whistler will be hosting the 2010 UBCM meeting next fall.
FROM PIQUE MAGAZINE – LINK ON FIRST PAGE
The Maclean’s article was fairly prophetic.
Our government said that we wouldn’t recover without a US recovery. Barack Obama said there would be a double dip recession. Ready for part two?
~Endangered
A visionary architect wants to bring a world-class ski resort to a logged-over B.C. valley. Eco-freaks respond with ‘grizzlies not gondolas’ bumper stickers
George Koch and John Weisssenberger
Financial Post
Friday, December 19, 2003
The photo looks down into an enchanting mountain cirque, a sapphire tarn sparkling at its base.
Towering snow-capped peaks rise behind. Pristine wilderness? No, merely brilliant misinformation. Had the camera been held a little higher, and pointed a little lower, one would see a valley clearly pierced by a logging road, its slopes covered in vigorously growing stands of trees bearing the signs of previous cut-block logging.
Welcome to Jumbo Creek in B.C.’s Purcell Mountains, not far from the resort town of Invermere. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one provides a textbook’s worth of insight into the tactics employed by opponents of the ski resort proposed on Glacier Dome and Jumbo Glacier farther up this valley. The proponent is about to submit his Main Project Report to the B.C. government.
The battle could form a business school’s case-study in turn-of-the-millennium development conflict. On one side is a dogged, somewhat idiosyncratic but visionary businessman who is playing by the rules and who wants to develop a project that would bring employment and wealth to a province that desperately needs it and, at the end of the day, make a profit.
On the other is the by-now familiar collection of ideological leftists, environmentalists and eco-freaks, Luddites, NIMBYs, agenda-driven bureaucrats, self-interested local businesses and even manipulative schoolteachers — in short, the baying hounds of post-modern hell.
Jumbo Glacier Resort’s proponent is Oberto Oberti, a Vancouver architect, project manager and lifelong skier, who a few years ago conceived the hugely successful Kicking Horse Mountain Resort at nearby Golden.
Amid stupendous scenery atop the main spine of the Purcells, Jumbo Glacier Resort would be unique in North America, more akin to high alpine ski areas of Europe, but getting the quality and quantity of snowfall normally found at heli-skiing operations. The initial, $80-million phase would include a gondola and other lifts providing the greatest elevation gain in North American skiing, plus a compact subalpine village offering 500 beds. If successful, it could grow to 5,500 resort beds.
The area comprises provincial Crown lands, outside any national park or otherwise protected lands.
Even the NDP-appointed apparatchiks of B.C.’s old Commission On Resources and the Environment found the area suitable for tourism development, saying it could be approved subject to environmental review. Oberti has spent several million dollars on planning and studies, including “the most extensive environmental assessment program done for any mountain resort in western Canada.”
Opponents have countered Oberti’s decade-long navigation of B.C.’s perilous regulatory archipelago…
continued…
with — what else? — misinformation so blatant it seems deliberate, junk science, paranoia, attempts at political sabotage and ad hominem attacks on Oberti and anyone who dares support him (including one writer of this column). The instances are too many and complicated to recount fully, but some examples are telling.
One is linking Jumbo Glacier Resort to a dormant provincial highway proposal spanning Jumbo Pass to nearby Duncan. This riles both greenies and residents of the Duncan area, who value their isolation. In fact, the resort doesn’t need or want the road, nor does the province have the money. The pass and the glacier are unrelated.
Opponents have taken to calling the project “Jumbo Resort,” a manipulation of the place-name that evokes a huge, nasty capitalist scheme. Too bad Oberti isn’t planning lifts at “Mega Monster Valley”!
Ironically, Jumbo Glacier is secondary to his plan, with Glacier Dome the main skiing area. Oberti might have been better off naming his project “Glacier Dome Ski Area.”
Oberti’s other project, Kicking Horse, was strengthened tremendously by a municipal referendum. It instigated informed debate and revealed more than 90% popular support for development. Oberti’s opponents have turned this idea on its head. Ian Cobb, editor of the Valley Echo newspaper, recently organized an online poll. The small number of self-selecting participants responded with — wait for it — 99% opposition to Jumbo. Results even Saddam Hussein would envy!
Also unlike at Golden, some prominent local businesses oppose Jumbo Glacier Resort. These are the usual zero-sum, the-pie-has-only-eight-slices types, oblivious that such a project is genuine value added for the tourist, elevating the entire region’s stature in international markets. A growing pie that would lift all gondolas, as it were.
Some of the same locals also claim Oberti’s project can’t possibly make money. It’s kind of them to offer free management consulting, but it’s really none of their business, is it? The regulatory process isn’t — or better not be — aimed at outlawing business risk. The local chamber of commerce, for its part, is too craven even to take a stand.
There have also been the usual lies about the valley being “prime grizzly habitat.” In response, Oberti commissioned a population sampling study, including DNA testing, by a team of bear experts. It found the valley is a “low” to “medium” usage area for two grizzlies. That’s manageable for a winter-focused, 100-hectare resort development that leaves many thousands of hectares untouched. The opponents’ response? A junk science pamphlet and an idiotic “grizzlies not gondolas” bumper sticker that presents a false dichotomy.
Environmentalists should hope Jumbo Creek isn’t teeming with wildlife. If it were, that would suggest the “sensitive” and “vulnerable” (never “robust”) “charismatic mega-fauna” — constantly exploited by the movement’s propaganda — can thrive alongside logging and mining. If wildlife has multiplied in defiance of two of the Horsemen of the Gaian Apocalypse (dams and oil wells being the other two), why the big deal over a ski area?
In fact, Jumbo Creek already refutes one of the environmentalists’ articles of faith: that forests, once logged, never really grow back. Some even call the heavily logged valley “pristine.”
Numerous further steps, including formal public consultation, will follow Oberti’s report submission. “We are begging the local government to withhold its judgment until it sees our full plan and the environmental assessment office’s response,” Oberti says. “There has been such a campaign of disinformation that the public’s view may be poisoned.” All project information is publicly available at a provincial registry.
Jumbo Glacier Resort will test the Gordon Campbell government’s commitment to restarting B.C.’s
economy and providing the long-promised alternatives to the declining forestry sector. While Premier Campbell has said he’d like to see this project proceed, his government’s record so far, including retreat from highways privatization, dithering over forest industry mergers and an obsession with the 2010 Olympics as provincial panacea, isn’t reassuring.
Oberti feels optimistic, however, saying he’s being treated fairly by Cabinet ministers and bureaucrats sans their former NDP masters. While anti-development factions remain, Oberti says, “there are many excellent people working to turn things around.”
It’s high time. British Columbia has become a have-not province. Its GDP is smaller in absolute terms than Alberta’s, which has nearly one million fewer residents. And before you snort about “all that oil” every Albertan has slopping about in his backyard cistern, remember that B.C. is even more richly endowed in resources than Alberta.
B.C.’s recent impoverishment can only be explained by lousy government policy and an increasingly surly population that seems to revel in its own lack of accomplishment. In that context, one wonders why Oberti goes on. But that’s what visionaries do: they buck the odds, even when their opponents are as mendacious as these.
© National Post 2003
Copyright © 2003 CanWest Interactive, a division of . All rights reserved.
CanWest Global Communications Corp
From the Durango Telegraph here; http://www.durangotelegraph.com/telegraph.php?inc=/09-02-12/mountain.htm
New ski area already in danger
REVELSTOKE, B.C. – Revelstoke Mountain Resort can now claim to have the most vertical of any ski area in North America. But will the lifts that allow that continue operating?
That was the question several months ago when the Denver-based majority owner, Don Simpson, concluded that his pockets were not nearly deep enough to pay the expenses of the new ski area, now in its second year of operations.
Real estate sales had gone well, yielding $130 million, but a
big ski area requires massive amounts of money to operate. Skier visits last year were still below 90,000. Although located along the TransCanada Highway, Revelstoke is still several hours from Calgary, and air connections are far weaker than is commonly found to major ski areas.
At that point, the Vancouver-based Gaglardi family, agreed to step up. They have something called the northland Properties Corp. The company’s Tom Gaglardi recently meet with community members in Revelstoke.
“It would be tough to overemphasize the financial difficulty the resort was in during the fall,” Gaglardi told the audience. However, he added later, the resort is still not out of the woods.
The problem for the resort is that it has to sell real estate or lift tickets, and it’s not in a good position to do either. Gaglardi said the majority owners are spending millions every month and do intend to move forward with two new lodges at the base area this summer, despite the fact that the real estate market has “evaporated to basically zero.”
In selling the ski product, he sees Revelstoke marketing to Calgary more heavily, but also to Australia and the United Kingdom. He asked for assistance from the community in welcoming tourists. He said he hoped the ski operations could become profitable within three to five years. “Really the only way to pay and continue for the resort is on the real estate side,” he said.
~Endangered.
Endangered, you continue to argue irrelevant stuff…everyone in the ski industry, including the owners of Revelstoke new going in that Revelstoke was going to be a long hard road to profitability.
They decided though that they had what it took to last long enough. They guessed wrong – as did some of the best economic minds in the world – but apparently they needed to consult with you…Revelstoke 10-15 years out will be one of the finest mountain resort towns in North America.
The option for towns like Revelstoke are resorts like this or forestry, mines, or oblivion. You obviously think that no one should risk anything and we just give up…forestry is in for a 20-50 year decline due to foreign competition and especially the pine beetle.
Interior communities are waiting for your suggestions/alternatives, as I am.
As for Whistler…the Mayor is simply negotiating in public. It is incredibly hypocritical of them / him to say they fear the competition from Garibaldi…as it was exactly the development of Blackcomb resort within a stones throw of the original ski area Whistler that set the stage for Whistler’s enormous economic success.
Garibaldi will be another similar resort to Whistler and the only reason it is proposed is the enormous success and profitability of Whistler. They see the success of Whistler and want a piece of the action…if Whistler was unprofitable there would be no one wanting to shell out private money to invest in it.
That is the key here…private money. Unlike the NDP’s attempts to run BC like an old communist state – picking the winners and losers – investing public money into dying industries that PRIVATE money wouldn’t invest in. Private money comes with a built in reality check.
If private money is in – the odds that there is a future in that product or industry is strong.
Again, Endangered what is it, if not mountain resorts, you would propose to sustain our economy?
Oh and check your source…a Colorado news paper. I wonder if they want to push the demise of a major competitors industry? As it is states like Colorado – and the rest of the world , not other BC resorts – which we still tourists from – and the US states are rightly getting very afraid.
There is only a few profitable ski resorts in BC, none are in the Columbia Valley. Jumbo will fail horribly! How can these people not forsee this? There is already alot of nearby ski resorts, and already a ton of jobs in the Columbi Valley. It makes no sence. People come here to see bears and cougars and wolves. Not to drive a super highway.
The Radium mill has shut = 200 local families out of work?! – not to mention the hundreds and thousands of other forestry families who have lost their jobs in the Kootenays and have moved away. Russell – how can you not see this?
The pine beetle epidemic is well documented and an enormous threat to interior BC communities economies. Jumbo is way to create more and more jobs with a fixed amount of natural resources. Russel – how can you not know this?
If we don’t have a strong rural economy we have no wealth to protect the “bears and cougars and wolves”. Russell – how can you not know this?
Russel wrote: “few profitable ski resorts in BC, none are in the Columbia Valley” – “Jumbo will fail horribly!” As usual no facts to support a mindless rant. The local hills were built by locals, due to ease of access from existing logging roads.
They were not built because they were perfect ski areas and competitive with the best resorts in the world. That is why we need a truly world class ski resort – that is Jumbo – Jumbo is unique in all of North America – Russel – how can you not know this?
Russel – it has been argued, and that argument was supported by facts during 10 years of reviews, that Jumbo will help those local hills become profitable. And those same reviews found your statement about wildlife totally incorrect.
In fcat Jumbo will help us to eliminate our overdependance on resource extraction which therefore means less logging, gas exploration, offshore oil and gas development – eliminating roads through pristine wilderness and wildlife habitat.
Whistler creates over 1 billion dollars of economic activity for BC. Translate 1 billion dollars created from one small part of one small valley in BC and replace it with 1 billion dollars of logging activity = thousands of pristine valleys saved from the chainsaw and bull dozer.
That’s why the Grizzlies prefer Gondolas!
Intrawest, lenders in talks after missed debt payment
Article here; http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/intrawest-lenders-in-talks-after-missed-debt-payment/article1411705/
Ski-resort operator missed a $524-million payment on a its $1.4-billion loan Wednesday
Steve Ladurantaye
Published on Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009 1:03PM EST
With a payment a day late on a $1.4-billion loan, ski-resort operator Intrawest is continuing negotiations with its lenders.
The $524-million payment was due Wednesday, after the company reportedly received a two-month extension in October.
“Intrawest continues to be in active dialogue with our lenders regarding refinancing a term loan,” chief executive officer Bill Jensen said in a statement.
Intrawest is owned by private-equity firm Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG-N) , which acquired the company in 2006 for $1.8-billion. Fortress also assumed $950-million in debt in the deal.
Fortress paid a 20-per-cent premium over Intrawest’s share price to get its hands on the company, whose well-known resorts include Whistler Blackcomb in Whistler, B.C., which will be used in the 2010 Winter Olympics for ski events.
A large portion of Intrawest’s business depends on the sale of ski chalets and vacation properties, a segment of the real estate market that has been hammered by the recession. Fortress marked down the value of the Intrawest investment to 29 cents on the dollar in August, it said in a letter to investors at the time.
Mr. Jensen said Intrawest’s customers at its resorts and property developments as well as Olympic organizers shouldn’t expect any changes, regardless of the negotiations on the loan payment and restructuring.
“It is business as usual for Intrawest and we are providing our customers and homeowners with the memorable experiences that they have come to expect when they visit our resorts, and will continue to do so regardless of the outcome of these discussions,” he said.
Fortress, which manages $32-billion in hedge funds and private equity funds, saw its shares slip 0.66 per cent to $4.50 in shortened trade on the New York Stock Exchange.”
~Intrawest already went to the BC provincial government for a loan Guarantee before defaulting but were turned down. The Intrawest investment lost 71% of it’s value (ouch).
~Endangered
Endangered,
This isn’t Intrawest the ski giant that revolutionized the ski world and brought us some of the finest resorts on the planet…this is “Intrawest” by name only that bought the Intrawest world with a whopping 90% debt financing. ONCE AGAIN this has nothing to do with the state of the ski industry. It is just another morbid reminder of the continued joy it brings you negative thinkers to shed light on the misfortunes of others.
This was a bad business model; predestined to fail from its inception; everybody knew it ( except you obviously) and yet somehow you attempt to make it an argument supporting the lame and out-of-fashion anti-Jumbo movement? The folks at Glacier Resorts Ltd have a sound business plan. They have been successful in many business ventures in the past and will continue to create successful business models that add value to communities like ours.
Have you bothered reading the master plan or any of the information from GRL? No? I didn’t think so! jumboglacierresort.com have a read…it’s much more informitive and fitting than the BS you continue to toss in.
Your arguments are and always have been moronic and off the mark…do some home work, research the topics you post and at least try and come across like you know what you are talking about instead of continuing to make false connections to appease and unknowing public.
Jumbo will fly…see ya in the lift line!
I have given up on this rallying and am waiting to wait until someone on the other side of the BS Train is willing to talk reality and have a conversation.
Put on your big boy boots and talk sense for once.
Endangered, you are providing anyone interested with an excellent example of the typical environmental extremist. Ignore the facts – ignore the arguments showing your opinion is invalid and stubbornly stick with an issue.
The environmental movement is being overtaken by the Green Taliban that you represent and it is the environment that will pay the price. Organizations such as WildSight have destroyed their reputation with their blind opposition as well…
…rational environmentalists have moved on to other issues since the Jumbo proposal received it’s environmental certificate. They raised legitimate issues – had them considered and addressed – they have done their duty – and moved on.
Sadly people like Endangered will never do this…could it be their ego or vanity? It really does not matter…the scary part is what they are capable of and will do to stop a democratically approved project.
As this Wildsite is trying to point out with the original article; Regulations are only as good as the existing governments will to enforce them. Here’s a good article on what happened at Revelstoke despite all of the regulations, EAO and CASP policy;
http://www.bcbusinessonline.ca/don-simpson
From Vail to Fernie to Whistler, the story’s the same: resort property development has invigorated towns and propelled real estate into the stratosphere, while leaving politicians and citizens scrambling to find ways to keep their towns diverse and affordable to people other than jet-setting resort investors. The question expert observers and locals alike are asking is, Why was Revelstoke caught snoozing at the steering wheel? …….
…..As for the folks down at city hall, she calls them naive, blind or both. “I think we’ve lost control,” says Little. “People were complacent in thinking that our city fathers would look after us.”
The downside of resort development is well documented. A 2007 American film, Resorting to Madness: Taking Back Our Mountain Communities, portrays some of the stark realities faced by U.S. ski resort communities relating to housing prices. In an interview for the film, Daniel Glick – an author who has written extensively about the Vail experience – describes the flagship resort of Don Simpson’s home state as a place where “even the professionals, the firefighters and the teachers, have to go further and further from the resort area” to find a place to live.
Tim Wake, a councillor for the Resort Municipality of Whistler and former manager of the Whistler Housing Authority, says that Revelstoke – which he calls “the poster child for what not to do” – doesn’t have to look to the U.S. for precedents. …..
…….Over coffee one day in March at the Main Street Cafe, Mayor Mark McKee ponders the rapid changes underway in Revelstoke as he nears the end of his second and final term. McKee is a classic small-town politician, a fixture in the local business establishment who glides through the pubs and streets of Revelstoke with the confidence of a banker. When he’s not absorbed by the often-thankless world of civic politics, he’s busy running a couple of retail clothing stores. He’s also a commercial landlord. RMR’s corporate offices are housed in the top floor of a heritage brick building that he owns – a coziness that makes people like Barb Little wince.
The mayor readily admits that the sudden influx of resort investment comes with its share of headaches for renters and first-time homebuyers, as well as for small-business owners struggling to find and retain employees. Indeed, not even city hall is immune to the changes: in a strange twist of irony, Hap Stelling, the city’s planning director, tendered his resignation in April after just two years on the job, explaining that Revelstoke was a town he couldn’t afford. Still, McKee says he prefers the challenges of prosperity to the old ones faced by the community – like how to keep young people from buying a one-way ticket out of town for lack of jobs. “For 15 or 20 years, our economy has been on a downward slide. Now it’s going up big time.” And as the mayor bluntly states, “selling real estate and making a profit are not dirty words.” …….
…….RMR may face an uphill battle over the long term. The credit crisis and slumping economy in the U.S. have heralded a dramatic slowdown in the local real estate market, with the B.C. Real Estate Association predicting MLS residential sales will drop nine per cent this year over 2007. The baby boomers who fuelled a big expansion in skier visits during the 1980s and 1990s are starting to hang up their ski poles. And Revelstoke, though geographically central in southern B.C., is distant from any major metropolises and can only be accessed from the east and west by a highway that can be treacherous in winter, with frequent closures due to avalanches.
There’s also stiff competition for resort-tourist dollars. Since 2004 alone, the B.C. government has green-lighted five ski resort master plans, including Mt. Baldy, RMR, Crystal Mountain, Saddle Mountain and Whitewater, not to mention Kicking Horse Resort that came on stream eight years ago. And the contentious Jumbo Pass ski resort in southeastern B.C. is a few handshakes away from clearing the final hurdles before work can begin……
…….Down in the valley, it’s spring-like, but high on the mountain – which is where I’m headed with Skelton, whisked 1,000 metres skyward aboard a yellow gondola car – winter perseveres. Skelton, a quick-witted Aussie and former general manager of Whistler Blackcomb, is living his dream: helping to grow a ski resort from the ground up. “A few years ago, I literally walked around this mountain with a GPS unit and topo map flagging out potential ski runs,” he says with the giddiness of a kid cut loose in a chocolate shop. He tells me the run beneath our gondola is named, in reference to an inside joke, Kill The Banker. Nobody – not Skelton, not Don Simpson – fosters any illusions. RMR will need a lot of investment from bankers and other well-heeled resort dwellers to drive the real estate machine forward and allow its 15-year master plan to manifest…….
~BC hydro’s “Revelstoke turbine 5″ project also went ahead during this time period and although the City asked for mitigation and BC Hydro stated that if both projects went ahead at the same time “There would be a problem” Nothing has materialized so far.
ONCE AGAN ENDANGERED…this is only ONE person’s narrow minded, overly negative, hyper-sensitive, one-sided, anti-everything view of what is happening in Revi. It DOES NOT make it gospel! Mckee and many Revi residents supported the building of the resort for many reasons. terrain, snowfall, one of the best lift accessed runs in North America, etc., etc…. The exact same reasons that many folks support JGR. McKee also mentions another positive reason for the resort; “how to keep young people from buying a one-way ticket out of town for lack of jobs.” Many, many young folks from the Columbia Valley are trying get in on the Revelstoke advantage. We’re loosing our working youth to Revelstoke…why are we so complacent to just sit back and watch them leave? Folks like you will always argue in theory that these types of jobs don’t matter and no young people would ever benefit from this type of employment. Your theory is obviously wrong! In practice we loose our youth, Revi gains them and we sit with our hands out and dumb look on our faces while our work force moves away??
As far as propelling real estate into the “stratosphere”, I suppose one can always search for the cloud in the silver lining. I don’t know about folks like you, but when the largest personal investment that I will make shows a favourable return (ie, goes up in value), I’m not just excited, I’m thrilled!!! Why not? But I guess we’re all suppose to suffer and give all you sad folks some company. Do you really think its a good thing for house prices in our dirty little “light-industrial” towns stay the same for ever and when our schools, hospitals and other public sector industries need stimulus we should hold our hands out like a bunch of sniveling, dirty faced democrats; waiting in vain for the government hand outs that we demand from empty coffers.
No Endangered, you are wrong. Wildsight is wrong. Our NDP MLA is wrong and all those that align themselves behind this type of negative thinking are wrong. We need economic drivers that fit our environment. We need stimulus and if our taxes go up $10-20/month, it’s a super, super small price to pay for the overall benefit of our communities. McKee has it right and a great vision of the future. He won the election here in the Columbia Valley, unfortunately we are grouped in with the ubber-left wing West Kootenay and Columbia-Revelstoke once again has to put up with another term of inactivity from an MLA that does nothing productive and bitches about everything. McKee offered a model of wise economic growth. Community economics will always be in motion, if they are not stimulated to move upward, they will slide backward. The narrow-minded, anti-development core of councilors that have been at the helm in Invermere for decades now are a shining example of this. We are miles and miles behind Radium and Fairmont in infrastructure, planning and vision and yet we still support guys like Campsall who only support the degradation of our community by actively opposing ALL growth…I’ve got mine…NOW SLAM THE DOOR AND THROW AWAY THE KEY!!
Endangered, you finally make a small attempt to weave your misguided posts back to the original article that you are debating in favor of and you even manage to massively miss the point there too. This article has nothing at all to do with government regulations of their enforcement or lack there-of?? This article is about one thing and one thing only— it is Wildsights attempt to test the waters to see how stupid the public really is! They publish articles that state that fuel leaks out of empty tanks, that empty out-houses spew Exxon-Valdez sized spills across pristine glaciers and that random runoff through natural soil equates to environmental catastrophe. They follow this line of bull up with the lie that this catastrophic event will cause untold hardship on YOU the tax payer and how this is all the fault of big-bad JGR! Sadly there are many out there who did not feel there intelligence was being insulted, but yielded their intelligence (or lack there of) to the mercy of Quinn and Larson’s lies and blindly believed their line of BS…I guess we all know where you fell in…hope it washes off!
Is anyone worried about their property taxes going up…I wonder if anyone (ie. Wildsight / Endangered) can tell us what will replace these lost revenues:
VICTORIA — From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
Published on Saturday, Jan. 02, 2010 12:00AM EST
Last updated on Saturday, Jan. 02, 2010 2:26AM EST
A brewing tax revolt by B.C. forestry companies has gained a legal foothold after the B.C. Supreme Court found a Vancouver Island community cannot boost its tax rate for forest lands.
This week’s court decision will cost the City of Campbell River $1.2-million, but it is also sending ripples through other B.C. communities where forest companies are withholding tax payments in what they say is a battle for survival.
The tax rebellion began in January, 2009, when Catalyst Paper Corp. announced it would not pay its tax bills in the communities where it operates, saying industrial tax rates are too high.
A series of lawsuits against the municipalities of Castlegar, Powell River, Port Alberni, North Cowichan, Kitimat and Campbell River soon followed from companies seeking tax relief.
TimberWest Forest Corp. joined the movement after getting a tenfold increase on its tax bill in Campbell River – a change designed to give other industry ratepayers a break.
“It seemed unreasonable, unrealistic,” Steve Lorimer, a spokesman for TimberWest, said yesterday. “There is a bit of a discontent here with the tax rates, which are generally not related to how much profit you make.” He said the rate increase would have made it even harder for the company, which has already branched out into real-estate development, to keep forestry operations afloat.
But Campbell River Mayor Charlie Cornfield said council will discuss next week whether to appeal the ruling. The city is already struggling to cope with an outstanding tax bill of more than $4-million from Catalyst – roughly 20 per cent of the city’s budget.
“The difficulty that local governments face is that we have only one way to raise revenue, that’s taxation,” he said. “We still have to provide the services to our citizens and corporations, and that costs money.”
Thursday’s court ruling gives TimberWest some relief, but the victory is expected to increase pressure on the provincial government to intervene – especially if it encourages other companies to join the fray.
TimberWest’s success in court is a first for the industry in this battle.
Catalyst Paper Corp. withheld $15-million in taxes in 2009, but has lost three court challenges in recent months. All three of those rulings are under appeal.
British Columbia’s forest industry has been contracting heavily in the face of the high Canadian dollar, a devastating pine beetle infestation and the collapse of the U.S. housing market.
The downturn has taken its toll on the provincial coffers as well. Last fall, the B.C. budget was revised in part because forest companies clawed back corporate income taxes paid in previous years.
The provincial government has refused to get involved to date, but both industry and municipal governments say that must change.
“This is a provincial issue and it is just beginning,” Castlegar Mayor Lawrence Chernoff said yesterday. “Corporations are watching this with an eagle eye and I have talked to mayors across the province and they are worried.”
The forestry downturn has hit his Kootenays community hard. The main sawmill closed 18 months ago, and the only other major employer, the Celgar pulp mill, refused to pay its July tax bill.
Celgar’s taxes usually cover 45 per cent of the city’s entire budget. “We stopped paving,” Mr. Chernoff said. Maintenance spending has been frozen, and the shortfall derailed planned infrastructure projects designed to attract new industry.
The mayor fought back, calling on Celgar’s parent company to use some of the tens of millions of dollars of federal grant money it is getting for energy-efficiency efforts to settle its bills.
On Christmas Eve, the pulp mill’s owners unexpectedly backed down. They delivered a cheque for $470,000 and promised to talk about a payment plan on the remaining $2.7-million bill.
Now Mr. Chernoff is worried that the TimberWest ruling could set back that bit of progress.
“We’ve got Teck Cominco [now Teck Resources] down the road, are they going to do the same thing? The corporations are saying, ‘We just can’t afford to pay no more.’ ”
The picture looked rosier for the municipal governments last October, when a B.C. Supreme Court judge dismissed Catalyst’s claim against North Cowichan.
Mr. Justice Peter Voith noted that property tax rates on industry are “markedly higher” in B.C. than they are in Ontario or elsewhere in Western Canada, but he ruled that municipalities have the legal right to set tax rates. “These matters are properly addressed by different levels of government and not by the courts,” he ruled.
On the heels of that ruling, Catalyst president Richard Garneau wrote to Premier Gordon Campbell, asking him to help secure interim relief for B.C. municipalities that heavily rely on an industrial tax base.
“Without your leadership, I fear efforts to resolve the challenge will lose the race against time,” he wrote. “We need a made-in-B.C. … solution to ensure our province retains and expands its industrial base.”
BC Municipal Spending Watch 2009
FOR MORE DETAILS
Heather Tilley, Policy Analyst, BC
Introduction
In 2008, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) produced its first annual edition of the BC Municipal Spending Watch. The 1st edition showed that only 3.8 per cent of BC residents lived in a municipality that kept spending growth below population and inflation growth between 2000 and 2006.
This second edition updates and extends the first analysis to 2007 and once again shows that operating expenditures at the municipal level continue to grow at an unsustainable rate. Only 2.8 per cent of British Columbians now live in a municipality that has kept growth in operating spending between 2000 and 2007 lower than population and inflation growth. Over the past seven years, only 24 small municipalities have been able to restrain spending on operations. The other 129 municipalities have not.
On a province-wide basis, from 2000 to 2007, population and inflation growth in BC was 24.6 per cent, although aggregate operating spending at the municipal level grew by 43.8 per cent (see Figure 1). Thus, the growth in spending at the municipal level was 1.78 times higher than population and inflation growth during that period.
Link here;
http://www.cfib-fcei.ca/english/research/british_columbia/111-budgets___public_finance/1389-bc_municipal_spending_watch_2009.html
~Endangered.
Endangered, that does not answer the question…forestry is going…what will replace those revenues? Your stats above don’t account for losing 40% + of a communities tax base…
The tax base is only tied to the amount paid by the mill directly…if a mill shuts the community loses the mills taxes AND that of its employees and the resulting drop in property taxes when home values plunge.
A vicious cycle…obvious to anyone with an open mind.
You imply JUMBO will reduce municipal property taxes; How do you justify that? MUNICIPAL taxes are going up because of Provincial and Federal downloading and because of MUNICIPAL overspending. Jumbo will compete for the finite funding just as Flaherty’s promises only one more year of Stimulus before cutting deep and holding down funding for things like infrastructure.
“Flaherty’s deficit plan: Take an axe and cut deep
‘I’ve done it before,’ in Harris-era Ontario
Published On Wed Dec 23 2009 Les Whittington Ottawa Bureau
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says he will continue with stimulative spending in 2010.
SEAN KILPATRICK/THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO
OTTAWA–Faced with the largest federal deficit in history, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says he will start looking for programs to axe and government assets to sell off as soon as the economy recovers.
“It’s necessary for restraint to happen” to rein in Ottawa’s spending, Flaherty told the Toronto Star in a year-end interview.
“We get hundreds and hundreds of programs that just trundle along, growing at 3 or 4 per cent a year or more – ahead of the rate of inflation – and it takes some resolve to restrain that spending growth.”
With a chuckle, he admitted that slashing government programs can prompt public outrage. “Every program has a group of people who believe strongly in that program,” he said.
But “some programs should end,” Flaherty insisted. “This assumption in government – that every time a program is created, the program should go on indefinitely – is mistaken. So some programs should just end because their usefulness has ended.”
Flaherty, who carried the provincial finance portfolio with the Mike Harris government in 2001-2002, said clamping down on spending “doesn’t make one popular as a finance minister.
“I’ve done it before. I did it in Ontario.”
Flaherty was a key figure all through the Harris years, when under the banner of the Common Sense Revolution Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives elevated chopping government programs and reducing taxes to articles of faith.
In his 2001 Ontario budget, Flaherty handed $2.4 billion in tax cuts to the province’s corporations, promised personal tax breaks and paid down $3 billion in provincial debt – all while balancing the books by holding down badly needed expenditures for universities, hospitals and infrastructure projects. ……..”
~ The provincial government had to slash all kinds of funding (Clawback) to pay for the reduction in income tax revenue after that tax cut in 2001. These tax cuts are highly regressive;
“Progressive & Regressive taxes/taxation explained.
Progressive & Regressive taxes describe the tax table, not a political opinion. It’s like a mathematical function. Most often these are called progressive or regressive tax tables or taxes.
In a progressive tax, the more you earn, the higher your tax rate.
In a regressive tax, the less you earn, the higher your tax rate.
The classical progressive tax is income tax.
The classical regressive tax is sales tax.
But there are many taxes and fees that are more extreme of each kind. Combined with this tax theory and these examples, a great deal can be induced about economics and politics.
Because most people are involved in preparing their progressive federal income taxes it is fairly well understood. And because most people are not involved in calculating their regressive taxes, it is fairly poorly understood. So we will concentrate on explaining regressive taxes, and how the two combine to make up our system, and most systems of taxation.
All known functioning systems of taxation have a balance of progressive and regressive taxes. This idea is almost never debated, the debates are over where the balance point should be, how much burden should be on the “rich”, and how much burden on the “middle” and “poor”? For simplicity we will combine “middle” and “poor” just say “rich” and “poor”, and put that dividing line somewhere between $50,000 and $500,000, as you wish. But we could just as easily have selected (say) $25,000 or $750,000 for our dividing line between “rich” and “poor”, the principles are the same.
In a progressive tax, the more you earn, the higher your tax rate.
In a regressive tax, the less you earn, the higher your tax rate.
Progressive taxes soak the rich, regressive taxes soak the poor.
An example of why sales tax is regressive.
If progressive taxes soak the rich, and regressive taxes soak the poor, why do we almost never hear the term, “soak the poor”? Perhaps that is a “loaded” question?
Let’s imagine two frugal traveling salesmen. They each have to buy a new car every four years to (say) keep up appearances, and they need reliable transportation.
(One guy makes 20K, the other 300K)
Run the numbers on a the RATE of total income each pays on on 5% sales tax.
Poor Boy buys a $20,000 car pays $1000 or 5.0% of his income.
Rich Boy buys a $60,000 car pays $3000 or 1.0% of his income.
Poor Boy has 5 times the tax bite, or rate of tax on a car. Rich Boy hardly feels sales taxes.
Then run the numbers on a $30 pair of Levis, and the tax rate discrepancy triples.
Sales tax is NOT a flat tax.
Other examples of regressive taxes and fees.
Most per-unit taxes are regressive. For example, in real estate, a $1,000/yr per lot assessment fee is not uncommon in some areas. (for things like fire and sewer, etc) That’s a fair chunk for a $200,000 home, hardly nothing for a $2,000,000 home in the same assessment district.
Here is an example of a per-unit tax also of the “sin tax” variety, combining two of the most regressive of all taxes. In California, a (say) $1/gallon of alcoholic beverage tax was enacted, then quickly repealed. The reason was, this was a major tax bite on a six-pack of beer, and almost nothing on a $150 bottle of champagne, or a $60 bottle of scotch or wine. Often sin-taxes are easy for politicians, not this time. There was a similar per-unit “snack tax” that met a similar fate because of potato chips v. caviar and such. These amplifications of the tax rate discrepancy work in conjunction with the normal regressive sales tax functions.
That outlines the basic ideas and theory of regressive taxation.
Complications.
These have a moral or arguable aspect. Groceries, drugs and some necessities are rarely taxed for moral reasons because of a compounding problem found with the truly poor that has to do with disposable income. That is, a family that earns less than say, $25,000 has almost none. They may be forced to spend say, 25% of their income on groceries, no choice. A family earning $100K hardly feels the grocery bill in comparison.
This is because even a family that earns say $50,000 has potentially $25,000 disposable if they chose to live as cheaply as the $25k family. This could be funnelled into tax shelters. And Rich Boy often chooses to spend most of his money in ways that avoid sales taxes, such on his gardener, nanny, pool cleaner, chauffeur, accountant, lawyer, and other labor-based services, as well a his European vacation and any investments. Poor Boy has no such choice, his income must go to taxable consumer goods. These complications amplify the “pure” qualities of regressive taxation theory.
Follow the money.
Why should the rich pay more?
Some say, for the same reason reason John Dillinger robbed banks: because that’s where the money is. There is some logic to that, the richest 2% control in the ballpark of 40% of the private wealth in the USA. Others say; “Because they can afford it.” Others who complain about progressive taxes say it’s because people want “revenge on the rich”, or it’s “class envy”. Or they say, “Why should the successful people be penalized?” That is an interesting take on reality.
But there is one argument that is not often seen, the “follow the money”, or follow the tax money argument. Simply put, it says you get what you pay for. It says that if you eat a gourmet meal, you have purchased an entire different meal (not just more of it) than for a McDonald’s Happy Meal. We claim that progressive taxes buys Rich Boy toys, regressive taxes buy Poor Boy toys. We say fair is fair. To test this idea, we follow the tax money.
Progressive taxes (such as income taxes) pay mostly for Rich Boy toys: Desert Storm, Cold War, gunboat diplomacy, the Fed’s infinite labor pool (WANTED: unemployment) and any related poverty, NAFTA, GAT, free trade agreements, interstate freeways, National Parks, FBI, CIA, a hot-shot standing military, etc. And regressive taxes: (mostly local sales taxes and fees) go for Poor Boy toys: local roads, hospitals, schools, local parks, libraries, cops, city/county councils, fire fighting, etc.
If “toys” sounds too flippant, feel free to swap with a term that rings true for you, such as “tools of the trade”, or “economic infrastructures.”
To oversimplify a bit, a carpenter does not require the Rich Boy toys, and the CEO of GM does not require the Poor Boy toys. And progressive (mostly federal income) taxes soak the rich, regressive (mostly local sales) taxes soak the poor.
So each Boy is largely paying for his own meal.
Libertarians often argue: TAX IS THEFT!
It’s human nature to overestimate one’s own powers and to undervalue the help we have received. The toys. Perhaps taxes are like any other transaction. A bundled transaction. When you buy a set of tires or a meal at a restaurant, you are paying for employee theft, drunk employees, security, air conditioning, accountants, and stupid business moves, etc. that you may disapprove of, bundled into the cost of doing business and it’s not on your invoice. Bottom line: nobody is forcing you to buy the tires or the meal.
Your choice. You can live like a hermit in a shack, eating roots. If you do not consume the toys, likely you will be poor and owe no taxes. But once you have eaten and grown fat you are now in debt. There is no free lunch.
Some say that the American meal is the best meal in the world. If you have eaten of it, pay your debts, and don’t try and sneak out the back door.
The tricky balance of money and power.
Taxes are also used to tune the economy.
One of the main functions of taxation is to balance the flow of money between the employer and the employee. This keeps the money from accumulating on one end or the other and crashing the economy or altering the basic structure of democratic capitalism as we know it.
For example, many people argue that in the late 1970’s the employees had too much power and money. Their wages were outpacing inflation and they were paying off their debt with little dollars. And that now in the 1990’s via the great redistribution of wealth caused by cutting taxes for the wealthiest in half, and “firing the unions”, some argue that the employers have too much power and money. History will tell.
What is tricky in this balance is that the power follows the money and the money follows the power. So when the economic scale starts to tip, it tends to accelerate. It’s very touchy.
Taxes are also used in other ways to direct the economy. For example, if the government feels that a certain direction is in the national interest, tax shelters may be opened in that direction. This could be of benefit to compensate for the market’s well known shortsightedness and directionlessness caused by its preoccupation with short-term gains. (Ten years is not a long time.)
Beware of the so-called tax cut.
The tax cut is a funny way of managing a household. It’s like deciding that you are spending too much money, so you ask your boss for a wage cut.
Perhaps the best way to stop spending too much money is to stop spending too much money. What an idea! Fix or cut the wasteful programs.
Sometimes a tax cut is not really a tax cut. That’s because there is no free lunch. If a needed program is blindly defunded, then the money has to come from somewhere. Often if it’s a federal program that is defunded, the slack is taken up by local (largely regressive) taxes. What we have is not a tax cut, but a tax shift, from the Rich Boys debt onto the Poor Boy’s shoulders.
In 1996 a federal across-the-board “tax cut” was popular in certain circles. Here is how cutting progressive (income) taxes might have effected you:
If you made 36K, Dole’s 15% “cut” takes $320/year less from you. But if local sales taxes edge up 1% to make up, you just lost money. Beware of the free lunch.
While most Rich Boys don’t want the Poor Boys to shoulder their debts, keep in mind that for many of the very Rich Boys, that’s part of their job. That’s just simple economics.”
~ So you can expect your municipal taxes to continue to increase over time
~Endangered.
Hedge-fund fight imperils Olympic ski venue
By JOSH KOSMAN
Last Updated: 9:40 AM, January 2, 2010
Posted: 1:35 AM, January 2, 2010
The owner of a ski resort that will play host to the Winter Olympics may be headed for a nasty spill.
Intrawest, a resort company whose properties include ski resort Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia, Canada, is at the center of a spat between a pair of hedge funds over a restructuring plan for the cash-strapped firm — and things may have gotten so bad that only the Canadian government can save the day.
The famous ski resort will be the venue for the Winter Games’ alpine events, but worries about Whistler’s financial parent have put the resort itself under a cloud, amid fears that Intrawest’s problems will dampen the mood at the events.
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Moneyman Wesley Edens (above) and Fortress — owner of debtladen Intrawest, whose properties include critical Olympics venue Whistler, is in a standoff with its lenders that, if conditions worsen, could disrupt operations of Canada’s Winter Games.
At issue is the amount of cash a lending group led by hedge fund Davidson Kempner wants from Fortress Investment Group, the Wesley Edens-run hedge fund that in 2006 bought Intrawest in a $2.75 billion buyout.
Fortress has made lenders an offer that would leave it with some control over Intrawest, whose assets also include Vermont’s Stratton Mountain, even though Fortress’ equity stake is seen as worthless.
Davidson Kempner rejected the proposal.
Intrawest already is late on a $524 million debt payment, and sources said talks between Fortress and Davidson are at an impasse.
A source familiar with the matter said both sides could be waiting for the Canadian government to step in at the last minute and prevent Intrawest from going into receivership ahead of the Feb. 12 start of the Olympics.
“If the Canadians were uncomfortable with lenders repossessing Intrawest, they might want to be part of the solution,” the source said.
Intrawest’s debt is trading at about 90 percent of its face value, even though the company’s value is really about 60 percent of its debt, the source said. That indicates debt traders are betting the company won’t go bankrupt.
Fortress and Davidson did not return calls. A Canadian government spokeswoman declined to comment.
Part of Intrawest’s challenge has been that since Fortress bought it, the company has slashed jobs and cut costs, and then the economy tanked, making it harder to attract skiers.
According to Doug Brownridge, a former Intrawest executive, his old company’s 240-person marketing team is now fewer than 20.
“Our ability to build demand was compromised,” said Brownridge, who was laid off from the company in 2007.
Whistler has also faced some criticism from visitors who complain of having to wait in longer lines as a result of the resort operating fewer lifts and of having restaurants close early. josh.kosman@nypost.com
~ Everybody expects the Taxpayer / Consumer to pay the bill; What happens when they can’t afford to pay any more? We subsidize building them and subsidize running them.
“Free Enterprise Definition – Business governed by the laws of supply and demand, not restrained by government interference, regulation or subsidy.” Notice that with tax breaks the subsidies aren’t supposed to increase.
What has happened to all of the money from all of the BC Government tax breaks since 200 that are supposed to be generating jobs? Best to be asking your Elected Government where they all are and how to retrain for them.
~Endangered.
Endangered, try answering the question – but you can’t obviously…if not Jumbo what will sustain the interior economy of BC? Wildsight could not answer and you cannot…
So if Intrawest is in trouble – then that means Panorama is to?! Better build Jumbo quick…or no forestry OR tourism in the Invermere area. The largest gov’t money is subsidizing the boom & bust resource industries.
You keep writing about Intrawest’s owners having money problems…if you over-pay for a home and then your ability to pay the mortgage becomes compromised that is NOT a reflection of the quality of the asset. Pretty simple..
You continue to make no sense – again you’re arguments are typical of the opponents arguments in all the reviews = blind opposition and a complete inability to support arguments against jumbo with facts.
Keep it coming though…you are an excellent example of what people are afraid of. Can anyone imagine having Endangered as a neighbour? God help you if you have a disagreement…
Endangered, Jumbo will help to assist local communities to SUSTAIN an industrial tax base. However, I could argue that without a forest industry taxes for individual property owners will rise – significantly.
So when you add in revenues from Jumbo, Jumbo related industries and employees – then, yes, property taxes WILL be reduced for local landowners as a result.
Pretty simple…
Check this out on YouTube – an interesting video – after Endangered’s 18,000 words of Mumbo Jumbo you probably don’t want to read anything else:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U7dVKbBuKw
then check this site for more on the Pine Beetle:
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/commodities/article.jsp?content=20060130_74010_74010
Read your article and found this;
“Will Horter, director of the Dogwood Initiative, a resource-reform advocacy group in Victoria, complains that lower stumpage fees in beetle-affected areas subsidize forestry firms while choking revenues that are needed to help communities adjust to the long-term impacts of climate-change-related problems. If the government handles the disaster by encouraging the short-term boom while cutting its own capacity to respond, Horter asks, “Where is the incentive to change?”
~The forests are a BIRTHRIGHT but taxpayer and Municipalities aren’t benefiting from the BOOM. Subsidies only benefiting the industry corporations. Both the Provincial and Federal Governments have squandered the benefits for the greatest boom in history on tax cuts and subsidies to the Rich and Corporations. So where have they invested those profits? Here’s one Opinion;
Canada’s Corporations Aren’t Investing in You
Their zooming profits are ending up overseas instead of creating jobs here.
By Kim Pollock, 28 Dec 2009, TheTyee.ca
Corporate investment in Canada has fallen dramatically in the past year. Some people would say it’s because corporations aren’t making profits. But that’s not really true.
Canadian corporations earned $54.1 billion in operating profits in the third quarter, up 7.9 per cent from the previous quarter, reports Statistics Canada. Profits in manufacturing, mining and other non-financial industries rose 10.4 per cent to $41.7 billion and 18 out of 22 sectors reported higher profits.
Yet productive investments remain in the tank: corporate spending on buildings, machinery and equipment fell by one in the third quarter, bringing the fall in investment in the goods-and-services-producing sectors over in the past year to 14.8 per cent. That helps explain Canada’s stubbornly-high unemployment, which remained at 8.5 per cent in November. And the latest StatsCan data shows Canadian industry is operating at just two-thirds of capacity.
So where are those profits going? In part, the answer is “offshore.” Canadian companies continue to export massive amounts of the profits their employees produce for them, investing them in their foreign operations or in global financial markets. In spite of the recession, Canadian companies have continued to steadily increase what they spend outside Canada. Since the end of 2005, Canadian corporations’ direct investments offshore rose by a third, from $452 billion to $601 billion. Their foreign financial holdings increased even more; foreign bond holdings are up by nearly half, stocks by 33.6 per cent and bank deposits — many in cozy offshore tax havens — have grown by three quarters.
Corporate profits are also going into the stock market. Recession? You wouldn’t know from the Toronto Stock Exchange, whose share value has risen by more than 50 per cent since hitting bottom in March……..
Another place those profits went was into the boss’s pocket. Over 321,000 Canadians lost their jobs in the past year and Canadians’ average wages fell. A Desjardins Securities survey found that more than 35 per cent of retirees reported a drop in their incomes in the past year while 39 per cent saw their savings decline. But Canadian Business says the majority of Canada’s 100 wealthiest persons became richer this year, reaching an average net worth of $1.7 billion each, up almost 5 per cent from 2008. While total car sales were down, luxury auto sales were up by about 10 per cent in November. BMW, the world’s biggest builder of luxury cars, said its global sales rose 11.5 per cent, with even bigger gains in Canada.
When the stimulus ends, then what?
So it’s not that there are no profits; profits are simply being used for purposes other than investment and job creation. The folks in Canada’s corporate boardrooms simply aren’t interested in productive investment right now. And the federal government is in no rush to encourage them to invest or create jobs.
In fact, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government seems set on winding up its stimulus plan next year. And that’s a serious mistake. Because while corporate investment has slumped, government expenditure is all that’s keeping the Canadian economy going! Government expenditures rose by $20 billion from the third quarter last year to this year.
Without that boost, small as it is compared to the Obama government’s stimulus plan, we would be in free fall.
Kim Pollock is a United Steelworkers research representative, based in Burnaby.
~The link is here; http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2009/12/28/NoCorporateInvesting/
~Endangered.
Ski resorts have a huge dependence on specifically trained and foreign workers. Whistler continues to lobby for more all of the time;
Whistler Chamber of Commerce still pushing for foreign workers
July 16 2009
Affiché par : rcaceres
A series of programs helps local employers hire people from elsewhere
By Claire Piech
Pique Newsmagazine
Times may be tough but the president of the Whistler Chamber of Commerce wants to make sure businesses are prepared when the economy turns around.
Fiona Famulak said this week she believes foreign workers will make up an important park of Whistler’s workforce in the future, despite the fact the provincial unemployment rate currently sits around 8 per cent.
That is why the chamber is working with the Canadian government and British Columbia’s chamber of commerce on a series of programs to help local businesses hire foreign workers.
“It does seem strange to be focusing on hiring foreign workers right now, but this is only a temporary condition we are in,” said Famulak, referring to the current economic state.
“The bigger picture is even though British Columbia might emerge from these times more quickly than other provinces, we need to be aware that our aging population and declining birth rates is an ongoing set of conditions for us.
“We are going to be facing a skill shortage, perhaps not now, but in the future, so we need to be ready to face those shortages.”
At least three programs are currently in place to encourage employers to hire non-Canadians.
The newest is a B.C. chamber pilot project called the Foreign Workers Resource Network, also taking place in Fort St. John, Kamloops and Nelson. Specifically, a trained person will be on hand between May 2009 and October 2009 to answer questions from employers on how to hire, train and retain foreign workers.
Famulak said not too many employers jumped on board with the program in May, but 12 employers got involved in June and two more stepped up this month.
Another program is the chamber’s monthly workshops with Immigration Canada that show employers how to hire foreign workers through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and B.C.’s Provincial Nominee Program.
The workshops were started about a year ago and about 10 to 15 employers have come out to each session, said Famulak. “That, to me, indicates that there is an ongoing interest in hiring foreign workers,” she said.
Lastly, the chamber is helping bring government officials who specialize in temporary foreign workers into the resort municipality for two days each month. The officers, through Service Canada, help non-Canadians navigate government services like receiving social insurance numbers and applying for employment insurance.
The chamber’s push for foreign workers is not new, however.
In 2006 the chamber, then led by former president Louise Lundy, conducted a petition to expand the Australian working holiday program and presented results to the House of Commons in Ottawa. One year later, the government announced a three-year pilot program allowing Australians to work in Canada for two years, instead of the previous limit of 12-months.
Since then, the chamber has continued to push for visa expansions for other countries. And this week Famulak said the “top four” countries she is currently focusing on for work-rule changes are New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Korea and Japan.
Businesses in Whistler, too, have been keen to hire non-Canadians in the past.
The number of Whistler employers who received a labour market opinion (LMOs) from the Canadian government almost doubled last year, from 604 in 2007 to 1,200 in 2008. The government requires employers to get LMOs for many types of work visas to make sure they are not taking a job away from a Canadian.
But this year’s economic meltdown may be taking its toll on foreign employment.
The government has only issued 109 LMOs from January to March for Whistler-area businesses this year, down from the 136 issued for the same time period last year.
Published 2009-07-15 11:50:46
Here’s the link;
http://cthrc.ca/fr/member_area/member_news/whistler_chamber_of_commerce_still_pushing_for_foreign_workers.aspx
Locals find themselves competing for jobs. housing, etc. With people whom will live up to 25 to a house and paying astronomical rents. These immigrant workers are only here for a couple of years on a “lark” and don’t contribute to the community as a whole. Some are even subsidized by money from home like college students. I’ve also read where Immigration doesn’t keep tabs on the these employees and they can overstay as well. In fact because of negative population growth Immigration is expected to fill that gap in the future.
~Endangered.
Yes Endangered and in COMPLETELY related news: the price of rice in Northern China went up 5 cents/20lb bag. The villagers are outraged!! Based on this its hard to argue that Jumbo is not a good idea.
I think my argument is actually more relevant than yours even though it is completely ridiculous. The only major difference is that I’m making a joke…you’re trying to be serious. Read the master plan. Make a small attempt to understand the project and the huge social, economical and environmental benefits that come along with JGR. Once you’ve made a big-boy attempt to get informed then jump back into the argument…or just continue your blatant negative smear campaign on the entire ski industry and continue to make ABSOLUTELY no attempt to make your arguments relevant.
You seem like an intelligent person…try showing it.
Quite honestly, Letifly and Stan, why on earth do you even respond to this Endangered individual.
He obviously doesn’t know what he is talking about as he keeps repeating irrevelant facts from totally divorced individuals and sudo organizations and figures, for things and ideas that have no bearing on our valley nor on Jumbo or the expanded ER or food or anything.
Ignore the ingnoramous.
Good points and advice…see you at Jumbo Resort Endangered…itsgonnafly
We can no longer allow the complete re-posting of stories from other papers or media sources. You are welcome to put in links to the stories or quote specific points from other stories but please don’t clog up the commenting area with entire stories. Thank you.
Thank you CVNews…..reading some of these ‘comments’ has become rather onerous and time consuming. A quick link is sufficient…..