Jasper mayor grateful Banff’s MLA pushing for tourism destination funding
Jasper is a town with a population of 5,000, but Jasper National Park sees nearly 2.5 million visitors annually. The challenges that such a municipality faces to keep on top of infrastructure maintenance are hard to underestimate.
On April 8, Banff-Kananaskis MLA Sarah Elmeligi recently put forward a private member’s motion calling for the provincial UCP government to establish funding and support programs for tourism-based economies such as Banff, Canmore and Jasper.
At the heart of Private Member Motion 508 was some form of tourism designation and funding model would help ease the financial burden on local municipal taxpayers who bear the brunt of paying for multi-million tourism infrastructure.
The Opposition Critic for Tourism, Sports and Recreation read that the motion would do two things, the first of which would be to recognize the importance of tourism on Alberta’s economy and the need to balance visitor experiences and resident affordability.
The second was to “urge the government to work with municipalities in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains with tourism-based economies to establish funding and support programs that ensure municipal taxpayers do not bear the financial responsibility for the additional infrastructure requirements and operational demands on those municipalities due to tourism,” Elmeligi said.
The motion was defeated after an hour of debate in the Alberta Legislature.
Mayor Richard Ireland was excited that Elmeligi was taking up the cause, so much so that he was in the gallery with Canmore Mayor Sean Krausert.
“I was really happy with the factual presentation – particularly by members of the Opposition – who nailed down almost exactly in verbatim the issues that we have been making to the province over a great number of years about why this is necessary,” he said.
“Although I share a bit of a sense of disappointment that the motion was defeated, I do agree with Mayor Krausert in Canmore, that the benefit is that it did raise the profile. I think it keeps the discussion alive. It circulates more factual information to more people who have an interest in this.”
The province’s new tourism strategy aims to increase tourism spending to $25 billion by 2035. It targets rural tourism growth, increasing transportation and access, diversifying tourism products, addressing labour shortages in the sector, and increasing access to capital for Indigenous tourism operators.
It doesn’t have an infrastructure component, however.
Banff, Canmore and Jasper together contribute about $200 million in provincial taxes each year and generate more than $2.2 billion for the provincial GDP annually.
“These three communities have 0.68 per cent of the Alberta population yet host 13 per cent of all visitors to Alberta,” Elmeligi said.
The opposition argued that growing visitation puts a significant strain on municipal infrastructure, the domino effect of which creates higher stress on municipal budgets. That chain leaves local taxpayers to eventually foot the bill through increasing taxes.
“Yes, it got defeated, but that doesn't mean that that's the end of anything. I think it's a really good step in the process,” Mayor Ireland said.
One of the issues that he hopes became clearer through the debate was that support for destination marketing agencies like Tourism Jasper is not the same as support to municipalities.
“While we support the government approach that they're helping industry (through Travel Alberta in particular and by helping the destination marketing organizations), they cannot count that as helping the municipality in different needs that we have,” Ireland said.
“Our need for assistance to continue to grow the tourism economy is critical to the province achieving its tourism goals.”
With files from Cathy Ellis, Rocky Mountain Outlook and Jessica Lee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, St. Albert Gazette
Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Jasper Fitzhugh
