By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Bighorn session well-attended, but Albertans still unhappy

Feb 3, 2019 | 4:08 PM

Red Deer’s long-awaited Bighorn Country Proposal ‘public information session’ was well-attended on Sunday at Westerner Park’s Harvest Centre.

The session was finally held almost a month after Environment and Parks Minister Shannon Phillips cited ‘inflamed rhetoric’ for cancelling the originally scheduled meetings. Following that decision, there were calls for her to resign.

However, there have been telephone town halls held since with around 20,000 call-ins, but Albertans were still clamouring for an opportunity to give their feedback on the Bighorn Country proposal face-to-face.

At least for a couple of folks in attendance, the experience was disappointing.

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“The minister should show up at these,” said Paula Lamoureux, who is a candidate for the fledgling Alberta Advantage Party in Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre. “This is a huge project and proposal and if the government wants feedback, they should show up, stand in front of the people, and answer the questions that the people want answered.”

Lamoureux, a life-long resident of Alberta, believes what the government is actually doing with these information sessions is simply laying out to people how things are going to be.

“It’s an unfair process to Albertans. We don’t have input whatsoever in it. The government did that back at Castle (Provincial) Park and they promised there was still going to be a camping area, still going to be quadding areas,” she continued. “Since that time, they have shut down a lot of the camping and quadding and they will do the same in Bighorn. They’re taking away the happiness Albertans deserve.”

The president of the Red Deer and District Safari Club also didn’t see the session as ‘consultation.’ 

“This is an information meeting. People don’t get to speak, or to talk. We maybe need to manage it (Bighorn) better, but there are way better ways to manage it than the wholesale shutting of it down,” said Jason Smith.

“They can promise all they want, but down in the Castle area, they said there’d be no trails taken away, and now we have three or four per cent of the trails left. Everything has been done absolutely wrong.”

Despite their feelings on the event and the proposal, Assistant Deputy Minister Rick Blackwood felt it went well.

“The atmosphere has been really good. People have had a good opportunity to ask a lot of questions, get a lot of clarity. There’s been a lot of misunderstanding and misinterpretation of certain things based on a variety of different sources of information, so we’ve been able to also provide them with information to clear that up,” he said.

“It’s also been a good opportunity for people to share their opinions with us, and we’ve heard a very broad view of opinions on the proposal itself, and all different elements of it, so it’s been a great exchange of information.”

Blackwood also noted that RCMP were on site at Westerner Park in case of emergency, but added that there was no overt reason to think there’d be any trouble at the event.

In a statement provided to rdnewsNOW prior to the meeting, Alberta Wildlife Association Conservation Specialist Joanna Skrajny said that her organization is very supportive of the proposal.

“Protecting the core area of wilderness that has remained relatively pristine is really excellent. It provides 90 per cent of the drinking water for the city of Edmonton,” she points out. 

“Establishing public lands east of the core protected areas really helps the governmet have the tools it needs to increase enforcement, designate OHV trails, and it just gives them a lot more mechanisms than they currently have.”

Krajny says if there any concerns with the proposal, it’s that the government has put too much focus on development in or close to the actual park. She says urbanization should be kept more nearby communities like Nordegg to help diversify those smaller local economies. 

She also noted that the consultation process for the Bighorn proposal has lasted longer than most.

Information sessions were also held on Friday in Drayton Valley and in Edmonton on Saturday. A fourth and final one is scheduled for 4-7 p.m. on Monday at the Royal Canadian Legion in Sundre.

Feedback on the proposal can also still be provided online.