In response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Wilderness Committee regarding budget cuts to provincial park ranger travel, the BC government said the Committee must pay $9,000 to receive the public records.

“This is a new low for the government. They don’t want embarrassing information to come out before the 100 year anniversary of BC Parks - so they issue a massive fee in the hopes that we will drop the request,” said Gwen Barlee, policy director with the Wilderness Committee. “The public has a right to know if rangers have enough money to put gas in their vehicles and patrol our park system.”

The Wilderness Committee made the FOI request last month after hearing reports that rangers were unable to adequately patrol parks because they didn’t have sufficient gas allowances or regular access to vehicles.

Over the past 10 years BC has dramatically cut back on park ranger positions. Currently, there are just 10 full-time year-round park rangers for over 1,000 parks and protected areas in BC. Additional part-time rangers are hired in the summer months but these numbers have been cut by over 50 per cent since 2001.

2011 is the 100th anniversary of BC’s protected area system. In 1911, BC created its first provincial park - Strathcona Provincial Park. Since that time, over 1,000 parks and protected areas have been established covering almost 14 per cent of the land base.

“Next year we should be celebrating the 100th anniversary of our provincial park system,” said Barlee. “But instead of a celebration we will be mourning the fact that our park system is falling apart because of government negligence and lack of funding.”

The management of protected areas in BC has been a hot potato for the provincial government. This August the BC Auditor General issued a critical report on the government’s management of the ecological integrity of BC parks. Additionally, the government has been roundly criticized for installing parking meters in 41 popular parks, weakening the Parks Act, changing park boundaries to allow for industrial development, cutting the park operating budget, reducing park rangers by over 50 per cent, and axing government-funded park interpretive programs.

“We won’t take this lying down. We intend to get this information and distribute it widely. Our next step is a complaint to the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Commissioner,” said Barlee. “It is outrageous that this government is demanding huge fees for information that should be routinely releasable to the public.”

For more information please contact:

Gwen Barlee, Policy Director, Wilderness Committee, 604-683-8220 (w) or 604-202-0322 (c)
Click here to see the letter from the Ministry of Citizens' Services requesting the $9,000 fee
and here to see documentation of the declining number of rangers in our parks.

Photo by Kyle Pearce