Village says it needs urgent financial support in face of Provincial inaction

By Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, RMG

The Village of Valemount released a statement on Thursday, April 3rd, criticizing the B.C. government’s lack of financial support as the community attempts to recover from the knock-on economic effects of the Jasper wildfire. 

The nearly three-week long closures of Highway 16 and Highway 93 put a significant lull in the village’s typically bustling tourism season. Coupled with the costs of temporarily housing and feeding about 20,000 Jasper evacuees, businesses incurred losses which will take an estimated $1.5M total to recover from – a cost which the Village says the provincial government has done little to remedy.

“Our village faces the prospect of losing nearly all our businesses and livelihoods because we helped evacuees and then were cut off for weeks by circumstances out of our control,” Mayor Owen Torgerson said in the statement.

Torgerson, CAO Anne Yanciw and Simpcw First Nation Chief George Lampreau recently spent three days meeting with Minister of Emergency Management Kelly Greene and Climate Readiness, the Minister of Jobs, Economic Development, and Innovation Diana Gibson, as well as former Minister of Emergency Management Bowinn Ma. According to the statement, the ministers did not commit to any funding support, and instead directed the Village to look for individual funding programs which could form a patchwork of recovery funds.

The Province provided the Village with a grant to produce an economic recovery plan – funding which the Village used to hire consulting firm Strategies North, who sent their plan to Council in January.

“Valemount should discuss with the levels of government, starting with the Government of British Columbia, to have this amount of funding available,” the plan reads. However, the Village says to date, the province has not given funding to implement the economic recovery plan.

The April statement says there is a lack of programs designed to meet Valemount’s needs: the wildfire occurred in Alberta within a federally-operated park, but affected a municipality in B.C., and it has been difficult to get funding from any of these three jurisdictions, the statement says.

“If your village is devastated by the ripple effects you can’t see, you get nothing except kind words,” Torgerson said in the statement. “The B.C. government’s words have to turn into action or our village will be left struggling to survive, and what message does that send to small communities across our province?”

However, the Village has received some support from the Alberta government, Yanciw told The Goat. The government is allowing the Municipality of Jasper to include Valemount’s expenses in its expense requests to Alberta – meaning Valemount can submit an expense request to Jasper, which Jasper will include along with its own expenses, then submit both municipalities’ expense requests to the Alberta Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Services.

The Village only asked Alberta to recover expenses related to hosting evacuees, according to Yanciw – meaning the Alberta government will not cover the $1.5M needed to make up for losses incurred during the highway closures. Businesses can submit expense reports based on how much it cost to accommodate evacuees, Yanciw said.

“I believe that it can result in success, but it is a cumbersome and slow process,” she wrote in an email to The Goat.

Yanciw said she does not know when the Alberta government will approve or deny the expense requests, and Jasper CAO Bill Given was unavailable for comment on when the municipality will submit its next expense request. The Village of Valemount will continue to lobby the B.C. government in the meantime, said Yanciw. She added that because the federal government is in the interregnum period until the election is over, the Village cannot lobby them until after the election concludes.

In an email to The Goat, MLA Rosalyn Bird said she does not believe the provincial government has provided adequate support to Valemount.

“Although I was not shocked with the pass the buck game being played by multiple ministries, I do remain somewhat astonished by what appears to be a genuine disregard and concern for the future of the Village of Valemount’s ongoing financial stability,” Bird wrote in an email to The Goat.

She added that Valemount residents offered “tremendous compassion, empathy and emotional support” to Jasper evacuees, which has not been reciprocated by the B.C. government.

Bird said she has been discussing another option for requesting recovery funds with Torgerson, but could not share any details. She added that she will use any opportunity to raise the issue with the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness.

“I remain committed to advocating for the Village of Valemount and all communities in my riding,” Bird said.