EDITORIAL · THE RECORD · KOOTENAY CENTRAL
Fourteen forest roads in Brittny Anderson’s riding have been closed, posted or retired. The opposition raised roads and access 30 times. She raised them zero.
Since 2020, the Selkirk district has closed, posted for removal or retired all or part of fourteen forest service roads inside Kootenay Central, Sitkum Creek among them. In the 43rd Parliament, eleven opposition MLAs raised forest roads and backcountry access in the House 30 times. Brittny Anderson, the riding’s MLA, raised them in none of her 68 turns. She has spoken up, in the House, in her own columns and at public meetings, for old growth, a cedar grove and 30 per cent of B.C. On these fourteen roads we found no public statement from her at all.
Backcountry Coalition is independent. This article is not authorized by any party or candidate.
- In the Legislature
- Since 2020: Nelson-Creston, then Kootenay Central
- Speaking turns read
- 191, from 2020 to 2026
- “Forest service road”
- said 0 times
- Turns on forest roads and access, this Parliament
- opposition 30, hers 0
- Roads closed, posted or retired in her riding since 2020
- 14 named here
- Lobbied on road deactivation
- 22 August and 2 September 2026
- Lobbying reports naming her, since Nov 2024
- environment and conservation 46, access groups 3
- On Sitkum Creek
- no public statement found
This is the second piece we have published on Brittny Anderson’s record. The first looked at the job the Premier gave her and found that no document binding a minister mentions the roads rural communities reach their economy on. This one stays at home. It asks what has happened to the forest service roads inside her own riding since 2020, and what she has said about them, on the floor of the Legislature and anywhere else we could find, from the House record to the local press.
Anderson vs the opposition · the House, 43rd Parliament, Feb 2025 – May 2026
01 Fourteen roads in her riding
The Selkirk district publishes one page of road notices for the whole of its territory, from Revelstoke to the American border. We read every version of it the Internet Archive holds since 2019, and the live version updated on 9 October 2026. Then we tested each road against the gazetted boundary of Kootenay Central, using the road’s own line from the Province’s forest tenure register.01, 02
Since 2020, fourteen forest service roads inside her riding have been closed, posted for removal or retired. Three are posted for deactivation now: Sitkum Creek, Heights and Kuskanax. Seven are closed with no date to reopen, Idaho Lookout since 2020 and Powder Creek since 2021. Four have had sections retired in the Province’s register. Eight of the fourteen were closed or posted after the start of 2025.
Most of the closures are for public safety, after a bridge deck failed or a slope washed out,
and nobody should drive a bridge an engineer has rated to zero tonnes. The issue is what follows
the closure. On all but one of these entries the district gives no planned repair date
, or
plans to remove the road altogether.
| Road | When | What happened | Her public response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sitkum Creek FSR 0235.01West Arm, north of Nelson | Posted 6 Jul 2026 | Kilometres 2.9 to 6.8 to be deactivated, with no prescription published. The bridge was pulled once already, in 2014. | None found |
| Heights FSR 0237.04Duhamel Creek, north of Nelson | Posted 6 Jul 2026; closed 28 Aug 2026 | The whole road, 0 to 6.7 km, to be deactivated: there will be no ATV access after completion.Closed for landslide concerns. | None found |
| Kuskanax Creek Section Two FSR 0042.05Nakusp | Posted 3 Nov 2025 | Deactivation planned for the 2026 field season. Road may be fully rehabbed if incremental funding is available. | None found |
| Idaho Lookout FSR 3108.01Sandon and New Denver | Closed Jun 2020; options Dec 2024 | Five options were put out for comment, the fifth being full deactivation. A decision was promised by winter 2025, and none has been posted. | None found |
| Goat/Kamma Creek FSR 0052.03Goat River, east of Creston | 6 Jun 2025 | Closed at bridge N7-082 at 25.5 km, for deteriorated bridge deck conditions. | None found |
| Goat Range Park Branch FSR 7051.02Healy Creek, off Highway 31 | 13 Jun 2025 | Closed to all traffic at bridge N7-266 at 0.0 km. No planned repair date. | None found |
| Leake Creek FSR 0125.02Coffee Creek, Kootenay Lake | 11 May 2026 | Closed for its entire length after washouts and landslides. No public access is permitted. | None found |
| Woodbury Fletcher FSR 0198.02Woodbury Creek, Ainsworth | 29 May 2026 | Barricaded at 3.7 km after a sinkhole and a slump. No planned repair date. | None found |
| Bayonne Creek FSR 3933.01West of Creston | 6 Jul 2026 | The bridge at 4 km was rated to 0 tonnes and barricaded. No planned repair date. | None found |
| Powder Creek FSR 7475.01East Shore, Kootenay Lake | Closed Jun 2021; reposted 9 Oct 2026 | Closed at 12.3 km at damaged bridge N7-137 for more than five years. No planned repair date. | None found |
| Grohman Creek FSR 0059.01West of Nelson | Closed 27 Jun 2024; retired 5 Nov 2024 | Closed at about 7.2 km at a failing retaining wall. Four months later, 3.3 km of it was retired. | None found |
| Duncan River FSR 0077North of Meadow Creek | Retired 11 Jun 2025 | 22.4 km retired in the register, with no notice on the district page. | None found |
| Akokli FSR 0188.02Boswell, East Shore | Retired 29 Jan 2024 | 7.0 km retired in the register, with no notice on the district page. | None found |
| Crawford Creek FSR 0020Crawford Bay, East Shore | Retired Feb–Apr 2022 | 14.8 km across three sections retired in the register, including Rose Pass and Canyon Creek. | None found |
How each road was placed. Every road above was tested against the gazetted Kootenay Central boundary of 2023, and those before October 2024 against the 2015 boundary of Nelson-Creston too. All fall in the riding she represented at the time except Idaho Lookout and Kuskanax. Until the 2024 election those two were in Kootenay West, so they became hers in October 2024. A seasonal gate on the Kuskanax road for a caribou maternity pen, and short closures for bridge work or logging, are left out. The register also shows sections of eleven other forest service roads retired in the riding over the same years, each under five kilometres. Those are counted in section 03 rather than in this list.02, 03, 04, 05
Idaho Lookout deserves a line of its own. The road leads to the fire lookout on Idaho Peak,
one of the best-known short alpine hikes in the Slocan Valley. In January 2025 the district put
five options to the public, and the paper that reported them spelled out the fifth: Idaho
Lookout would no longer be accessible.
Comments closed on 28 February 2025. The
district’s own notice still says a final decision is expected by winter 2025
, and
that notice was still live on 9 October 2026. That consultation ran while she was the minister
for rural communities, in her own riding, and the road is still closed.03
We found no public statement from her on any of the fourteen. We looked in every speaking turn she has taken in the Legislature, every BC Gov News release that names her, about 150 Nelson Star articles that name her (including every column she has signed), 166 issues of the Valley Voice, the Castlegar News, Creston Valley Advance, Revelstoke Review, My Nelson Now and My Kootenay Now archives, her campaign page and the provincial lobbyists registry. In February 2025 Silverton’s council met her and, by the local paper’s account, discussed forest service road maintenance; the report names no road and records nothing she said.06
Some channels could not be checked. Her social media accounts cannot be read without logging in. Her MLA and caucus websites have been offline since the Legislature was dissolved. Castanet and the regional district’s agendas could not be searched, so those remain unchecked.05
02 Sitkum Creek, the crossing the public already rebuilt
Sitkum Creek runs off Mount Cornfield into the West Arm of Kootenay Lake, about twenty kilometres north of Nelson. Its forest service road, file 0235, climbs from 719 metres to 1,312 metres into a community watershed the Province designated in 1995 to protect a waterworks serving thirty connections. On 6 July 2026 the Selkirk Natural Resource District posted the road from kilometre 2.9 to 6.8 for deactivation. That is 3,852.7 metres, 57 per cent of the road, and it takes in the whole upper half, to the end of the road.01, 07
It is the second time the Province has cut this road back. In 2014 the Ministry of Forests pulled
the bridge at about the eight-kilometre mark, above the reach now posted, and, in a resident’s words to the Nelson Star, destroyed
hundreds of meters of road on either side of the creek
with it. In 2016 three members of
the Nelson Sno-Goers cut a new alignment and built a new crossing on an $8,000 grant from
Columbia Basin Trust, a Crown corporation. The full record of both events, with the documents,
is in our Sitkum Creek piece, which we published on 29 September 2026.07
Sitkum Creek sits wholly inside Kootenay Central, and before the 2024 election it sat inside Nelson-Creston, the riding she held from 2020. We checked the road’s own line against the Province’s gazetted electoral boundaries, on both the 2015 riding map and the 2023 one.02
We found no public statement from her on Sitkum Creek in any of the places listed in section 01. No outlet in the region has reported the Sitkum posting at all, in print or online.
03 What the Province’s own register records
A closure is posted, but a retirement is not. The Province’s forest tenure register records when a section of forest service road stops being a road the Ministry is responsible for. We pulled every section retired since 24 October 2020, the day she was first elected, and kept the ones whose line falls inside Kootenay Central. There are 29 of them. Together they come to 86.2 kilometres of public road, and every one is held by the Selkirk district office in Nelson, the office that posted Sitkum Creek. Two of those roads, Wilson Creek and a Shannon Creek spur, were in Kootenay West when they were retired, so 76.5 kilometres of it fell inside the riding she held at the time each section was retired.02
Forest service road retired inside today’s Kootenay Central, by year
Kilometres of road the Province’s register records as retired, from her first election to 9 October 2026. The orange bars fall after she became Minister of State for Rural Communities on 18 November 2024. Of the 2022 and 2023 totals, 9.7 km lay in Kootenay West, not Nelson-Creston, when it was retired.
Forest tenure road sections, file type Forest Service Road, status Retired, retirement date on or after 24 Oct 2020, tested against the gazetted boundary. 2024 includes 1.0 km retired on 21 November, three days after she became minister.
What a retirement date is, and is not. It is the date the register was changed. It need not be the day an excavator was on the road, and some sections are short spurs. One date in the list, 11 February 2025, carries a batch of retirements across unrelated valleys, which looks like a tidy-up of the register. Its three sections in this riding come to 2.6 km. The largest single entry, 22.4 km of the Duncan River road on 11 June 2025, is not on the district’s page at all, under any heading.
Since she became the minister for rural communities, 37.1 kilometres of forest service road inside her riding has been retired in the register. We found no public statement from her on any of it.
04 The question was put to her, on the record
British Columbia’s lobbyists registry is public. An organisation that lobbies a member of the Legislature has to file a report naming whom it contacted and what about. On 22 August 2026, six weeks after Sitkum Creek and Heights were posted, the BC Snowmobile Federation recorded a lobbying communication with four office holders. The first name on the report is hers, with both of her titles.08
Lobbying Activity Report 572-54391 · British Columbia Snowmobile Federation
- Lobbying activity date
- 2026-08-22
- Senior public office holders lobbied
- Brittny Anderson, MLA for Kootenay Central, Minister of State for Local Governments and Rural Communities
Russ Laroche, Regional Executive Director, Forests
Scott McInnis, MLA for Columbia River-Revelstoke
Ravi Parmar, MLA for Langford-Highlands - Topic
- “Public recreation access and resource roads — maintaining motorized recreation access to Crown land, including Forest Service Roads/resource roads, road deactivation, maintenance, and access to established recreation areas.”
- Arranged a meeting
- No
Eleven days later the federation came back. Its report for 2 September 2026, report 572-54386, carries the same topic word for word, and this time hers is the only name on it, as Minister of State for Local Governments and Rural Communities. The registry spells her first name “Brittany” on that report.08
A registry entry shows the subject was put in front of her. It cannot show what she did with it, and both reports record that the activity did not arrange a meeting. What we can say is that in the weeks since, we have found no public statement from her on road deactivation, in her riding or anywhere else.
Who had her ear
Those two reports are not the whole file. We took every lobbying activity report in the registry that names her as an office holder lobbied, from the swearing-in of the cabinet in November 2024 to the last report posted before the election, and sorted each one by the sector of the organisation that filed it. There are 205, from 107 organisations.08
Lobbying reports naming Brittny Anderson, by sector · 20 Nov 2024 – 19 Sep 2026
Environmental and conservation groups filed more reports naming her than any other sector: 46, from 19 organisations. The forest industry filed 14. Commercial recreation and tourism operators, such as guide outfitters and bear-viewing companies, filed 5. Groups that speak for the public who use the backcountry filed 3, and only the two snowmobile reports were about access; the third, from the B.C. Wildlife Federation, was about habitat funding.
Her own region is on the list. Wildsight, the Kootenay conservation group, filed five
reports naming her, and every one named her alone. The one for 28 May 2025 sets out two aims: to
highlight new protected areas including Parks and Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas
,
and Action on habitat restoration and landscape level connectivity including range and forest
management, highway crossings, road rehabilitation
. Road rehabilitation is the work of taking
a road out; the Selkirk district uses the same word for the Kuskanax road, which may be fully
rehabbed
. MakeWay, the
conservation charity, filed ten, the most of any organisation, among them a push for a
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Law
. The Sierra Club filed three on forest conservation
.
The access side of the ledger opens on 22 August 2026, six weeks after Sitkum Creek was posted.
The method
- Source
- The Registrar of Lobbyists’ open data export of 20 September 2026, plus the three reports naming her that were posted after it, read from the public report pages
- Counted
- Every lobbying activity report that lists her as a senior public office holder lobbied, under any of her titles, one count per report. Names of organisations are as the registry records them
- Sectors
- The sectors assigned to each organisation in our lobbying piece, mostly from its registered name, and applied there to every official alike. Thirteen of them appear in her reports
- Limits
- A report records who chose to contact her, not whom she sought out. The median report naming her lists six office holders, and 38 of the 205 arranged a meeting: 6 from environmental groups, 3 from the forest industry, 2 from commercial recreation and none from access groups. A report shows who was knocking, not what she did
All 107 organisations, with every report linked
| Organisation, as registered | Sector | Reports | Activity dates, linked to the registry |
|---|---|---|---|
| MakeWay Charitable Society | Environment and conservation | 10 | 2025-02-10 2025-02-17 2025-02-27 2025-05-28 2025-07-31 2026-04-01 2026-04-15 2026-04-28 2026-05-05 2026-05-13 |
| Youth Climate Corps BC | Environment and conservation | 8 | 2025-02-03 2025-02-24 2025-04-07 2025-04-23 2025-05-29 2025-11-17 2026-06-22 2026-08-04 |
| Canadian Federation of Independent Business | Business and commerce | 6 | 2025-01-07 2025-03-12 2025-06-20 2025-11-24 2026-03-18 2026-06-10 |
| MS Canada | Health and social services | 6 | 2025-04-07 2025-05-30 2025-07-25 2025-08-18 2026-07-20 2026-08-19 |
| Alzheimer Society of BC and Yukon | Health and social services | 5 | 2024-12-05 2025-03-12 2026-03-04 2026-05-20 2026-05-31 |
| Wildsight | Environment and conservation | 5 | 2025-03-04 2025-05-28 2026-02-05 2026-03-30 2026-04-19 |
| Association of Interior Realtors | Real estate, development and construction | 4 | 2024-11-21 2025-06-03 2025-06-10 2025-10-16 |
| Canadian Propane Association | Oil, gas and energy | 4 | 2025-03-25 2025-05-12 2026-04-16 2026-05-25 |
| Council of Forest Industries | Forest industry | 4 | 2025-04-14 2025-07-23 2025-10-08 2026-01-20 |
| Diabetes Canada | Health and social services | 4 | 2025-01-17 2025-04-07 2025-04-15 2025-12-01 |
| Mining Association of British Columbia | Mining | 4 | 2025-11-24 2025-11-26 2025-11-26 2025-11-26 |
| Sierra Club of BC Foundation | Environment and conservation | 4 | 2025-03-07 2025-11-15 2026-06-16 2026-08-04 |
| B.C. Agriculture Council | Agriculture, food and fisheries | 3 | 2024-12-05 2025-07-25 2025-07-28 |
| BC Chamber of Commerce | Business and commerce | 3 | 2024-11-20 2025-03-12 2025-09-24 |
| British Columbia Real Estate Association | Real estate, development and construction | 3 | 2024-11-21 2025-05-14 2025-05-28 |
| Greater Vancouver Board of Trade | Business and commerce | 3 | 2025-01-30 2025-03-12 2025-10-14 |
| Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited | Business and commerce | 3 | 2025-02-04 2025-08-14 2026-05-20 |
| Independent Lumber Manufacturers' Association | Forest industry | 3 | 2025-02-20 2025-06-03 2025-07-03 |
| Interfor Corporation | Forest industry | 3 | 2025-03-10 2025-03-18 2025-06-03 |
| National Police Federation | Labour unions | 3 | 2025-02-11 2025-05-05 2026-02-18 |
| Options for Sexual Health | Health and social services | 3 | 2025-01-23 2025-09-17 2025-09-23 |
| Penticton & Wine Country Chamber of Commerce | Business and commerce | 3 | 2025-05-20 2025-08-01 2025-11-04 |
| The Truck Loggers Association | Forest industry | 3 | 2025-03-13 2025-10-22 2026-04-15 |
| Village of Valemount | Municipalities and local government | 3 | 2025-03-11 2025-03-11 2025-03-11 |
| Watershed Watch Salmon Society | Environment and conservation | 3 | 2025-05-28 2025-11-24 2026-04-15 |
| AltaGas Ltd. | Oil, gas and energy | 2 | 2025-07-23 2026-05-25 |
| Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada | Civil society, education and professions | 2 | 2025-01-20 2025-09-09 |
| BC Dental Association | Health and social services | 2 | 2026-02-17 2026-03-04 |
| BC Funeral Association | Business and commerce | 2 | 2025-10-22 2026-05-11 |
| British Columbia Association of Community Health Centres | Health and social services | 2 | 2025-10-22 2025-10-27 |
| British Columbia Snowmobile Federation | Outdoor recreation and access groups | 2 | 2026-08-22 2026-09-02 |
| Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, British Columbia | Environment and conservation | 2 | 2024-12-05 2025-04-29 |
| City of Maple Ridge | Municipalities and local government | 2 | 2025-05-14 2026-05-04 |
| Clayoquot Biosphere Trust | Environment and conservation | 2 | 2025-11-27 2026-07-09 |
| Commercial Bear Viewing Association | Tourism and commercial recreation | 2 | 2025-11-24 2026-08-26 |
| Construction Maintenance and Allied Workers Canada | Labour unions | 2 | 2024-11-21 2025-01-06 |
| First Call Child and Youth Advocacy Society | Health and social services | 2 | 2025-02-19 2026-01-26 |
| Insurance Bureau of Canada | Business and commerce | 2 | 2025-02-10 2025-07-29 |
| Labatt Breweries of Canada | Agriculture, food and fisheries | 2 | 2026-05-28 2026-05-28 |
| Nelson Professional Fire Fighters Association | Labour unions | 2 | 2025-01-23 2025-03-04 |
| Restaurants Canada | Business and commerce | 2 | 2026-03-30 2026-05-14 |
| SenseNet Inc. | Business and commerce | 2 | 2025-11-24 2025-11-24 |
| Teck Resources Limited | Mining | 2 | 2025-04-15 2025-04-22 |
| The British Columbia College of Family Physicians (A Chapter of the College of Family Physicians of Canada) | Health and social services | 2 | 2025-02-28 2025-05-07 |
| The British Columbia College of Family Physicians (A chapter of the college of family physicians of Canada) | Health and social services | 2 | 2025-05-05 2025-05-07 |
| Adventure Tourism Coalition of BC | Tourism and commercial recreation | 1 | 2024-12-19 |
| Alma Mater Society of the University of British Columbia Vancouver | Civil society, education and professions | 1 | 2025-11-25 |
| Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia | Mining | 1 | 2025-11-26 |
| Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists in the Province of British Columbia | Civil society, education and professions | 1 | 2026-03-02 |
| B.C. Pharmacy Association | Health and social services | 1 | 2025-04-01 |
| BC Association of Community Health Centres | Health and social services | 1 | 2025-10-30 |
| BC Federation of Students | Civil society, education and professions | 1 | 2025-10-22 |
| BC Fruit Growers' Association | Agriculture, food and fisheries | 1 | 2025-10-27 |
| BC Gaming Industry Association | Business and commerce | 1 | 2025-10-08 |
| BC Poultry Association | Agriculture, food and fisheries | 1 | 2026-05-26 |
| BC Teachers' Federation | Labour unions | 1 | 2026-07-15 |
| British Columbia Centre for Innovation & Clean Energy (dba NorthX Climate Tech) | Oil, gas and energy | 1 | 2026-08-28 |
| British Columbia Dairy Association | Agriculture, food and fisheries | 1 | 2024-11-27 |
| British Columbia Nurses' Union | Labour unions | 1 | 2025-10-23 |
| British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2024-11-28 |
| Canadian News Media Association | Civil society, education and professions | 1 | 2026-07-29 |
| Canadian Union of Public Employees - British Columbia Division | Labour unions | 1 | 2025-11-27 |
| Canadians for Clean Prosperity | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2026-01-08 |
| Capilano Students' Union Association | Civil society, education and professions | 1 | 2025-11-25 |
| Citizens for My Sea to Sky Society | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2026-04-08 |
| Clean Economy Fund | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2025-04-14 |
| Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. | Health and social services | 1 | 2025-09-15 |
| Community Legal Assistance Society | Civil society, education and professions | 1 | 2026-08-19 |
| Construction & Specialized Workers' Union Local 1611 | Labour unions | 1 | 2026-03-03 |
| Deep Sea Trawlers Association | Agriculture, food and fisheries | 1 | 2025-11-27 |
| Dogwood Initiative (Forest Futures) | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2026-01-19 |
| Dr. Richard Arseneau Inc. | Health and social services | 1 | 2025-12-04 |
| Ecotrust Canada | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2025-09-22 |
| Elk Valley Resources LTD. | Mining | 1 | 2025-11-26 |
| FlixBus Canada, ULC | Business and commerce | 1 | 2026-08-12 |
| FortisBC Energy Inc. | Oil, gas and energy | 1 | 2026-03-30 |
| FPX Nickel Corp. | Mining | 1 | 2025-11-26 |
| Geoscience BC | Mining | 1 | 2024-11-29 |
| GlaxoSmithKline Inc. | Business and commerce | 1 | 2025-01-23 |
| Greenpeace Canada | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2025-12-11 |
| Guide Outfitters Association of British Columbia | Tourism and commercial recreation | 1 | 2024-12-11 |
| Heart and Stroke Foundation | Health and social services | 1 | 2025-11-19 |
| Hospital Employees' Union | Labour unions | 1 | 2024-12-18 |
| International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 115 | Labour unions | 1 | 2026-03-03 |
| Jewish Seniors Alliance of British Columbia Society | Health and social services | 1 | 2025-04-07 |
| Kids Help Phone | Health and social services | 1 | 2026-01-20 |
| LifeLabs LP | Health and social services | 1 | 2026-04-15 |
| March of Dimes Canada | Health and social services | 1 | 2025-11-15 |
| MVZEIF | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2026-05-05 |
| Newmont Canada Corporation | Mining | 1 | 2025-01-16 |
| Pacific Prawn Fishermen's Association | Agriculture, food and fisheries | 1 | 2025-11-27 |
| Pacific Salmon Foundation | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2025-03-06 |
| Pano AI, Inc. | Business and commerce | 1 | 2026-03-12 |
| Paper Excellence Canada Holdings Corporation | Forest industry | 1 | 2025-01-21 |
| REACH Centre Association | Civil society, education and professions | 1 | 2025-10-30 |
| Rick Hansen Foundation | Health and social services | 1 | 2025-11-19 |
| Spinal Cord Injury Organization of British Columbia | Health and social services | 1 | 2025-11-19 |
| The B.C. Wildlife Federation | Outdoor recreation and access groups | 1 | 2025-11-24 |
| The Children's Family House Society of British Columbia d.b.a. Ronald McDonald House British Columbia & Yukon | Health and social services | 1 | 2026-09-19 |
| The Nature Conservancy of Canada | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2025-07-30 |
| Underwater Harvesters Association | Agriculture, food and fisheries | 1 | 2025-11-27 |
| United Steelworkers | Labour unions | 1 | 2025-03-06 |
| Vancouver City Savings Credit Union (Vancity) | Business and commerce | 1 | 2025-04-14 |
| West Coast Environmental Law Association | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2025-11-17 |
| Wilderness Tourism Association of BC | Tourism and commercial recreation | 1 | 2025-11-24 |
| Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative Foundation | Environment and conservation | 1 | 2025-11-24 |
| YMCA BC | Health and social services | 1 | 2025-12-10 |
In our view, the pattern on the record is plain. In the twenty-two months covered, environmental and conservation groups lobbied her 46 times, one of them for road rehabilitation in her own region. Groups asking her to keep the roads open lobbied her twice, both times after the roads in her riding had been posted. We found no public statement from her that answered either of those two.
05 Everything she has said in the Legislature
Our first piece read the Hansard indexes for the current parliament and the two speeches she gave in it. This time we read every word. The Legislature publishes each sitting as a transcript, so we pulled all 628 of them from December 2020, when she was first sworn in, to the last sitting in May 2026. Then we pulled out every turn in which she spoke and read all 191.09
| In her 191 speaking turns, 2020–2026 | Times said |
|---|---|
| “Forest service road” | 0 |
| “Resource road” | 0 |
| “Deactivation”, in any form | 0 |
| Sitkum, Rady, Incomappleux or the Selkirk district | 0 |
| Any of the fourteen roads, by name | 0 |
| “Tourism” | 33 |
| “Trail” | 20 |
| “Back country” or “backcountry” | 16 |
The control. The vocabulary is not rare in that room. In the current parliament alone, “Crown land” was said 185 times and “deactivation” 45 times by other members. She talked about tourism, trails and the backcountry often. In a full reading she never once talked about the roads that reach them, or about losing one. Places such as Crawford Bay come up in her speeches; none of the fourteen roads does.
Anderson vs the opposition, turn by turn
The fairest test of a silence is to set it beside the people sitting in the same room. The 43rd Parliament sat from February 2025 to May 2026, and the Legislature published 188 transcripts of its sittings, Committee of Supply in the House included. We read every speaking turn in all of them, about 41,000, and applied one rule to her and to every member who is not in the government.
The method, applied identically to both sides
- Search terms
- “forest service road” or “FSR”; “resource road”; “deactivate” in any form; “forestry road”, “forest road” or “logging road”; “road closure” or a road “closed”; “backcountry” or “back country” in the same sentence as “access”; “access to Crown land”
- Counted
- A turn counts once, however many terms it uses, if it raises the closure, deactivation or upkeep of a forest, resource or backcountry road, or public access to the backcountry or Crown land
- Not counted
- A term used in passing: a highway closed by a crash, a logging road as scenery, a bill clause on liability, a road a treaty leaves out. Twenty-five opposition turns matched a term and were set aside this way, two of them from the Green caucus
- Result
- Opposition: 30 turns, by 11 MLAs, all sitting as BC Conservatives at the time. Brittny Anderson: 0 of 68 turns matched any term
- Her roads by name
- No member of any party named any of the fourteen roads in section 01 in this Parliament
| Date | Opposition MLA | What they raised, with the transcript |
|---|---|---|
| 25 Feb 2025 | Lorne DoerksonCariboo-Chilcotin | Fire crews finding that a road “has been deactivated by the Minister of Forests”; forestry roads going unserviced Issue 9 |
| 10 Mar 2025 | Scott McInnisColumbia River–Revelstoke | “Unfettered free access to Crown land for recreation is essential in B.C.” Issue 21 |
| 11 Mar 2025 | Donegal WilsonBoundary-Similkameen | The BC Snowmobile Federation’s sixty years of “advocating for safe, responsible and sustainable access to our back country” Issue 22 |
| 9 Apr 2025 | Ward StamerKamloops-North Thompson | How many roads and bridges were permanently deactivated, and why the ministry would “rather deactivate them than maintain them” Issue 38 |
| 9 Apr 2025 | Gavin DewKelowna-Mission | A trail society’s offer to maintain a forest service road to trail parking at its own cost Issue 38 |
| 9 Apr 2025 | Donegal WilsonBoundary-Similkameen | The budget for “maintenance and repair of forestry roads to provide access to recreation sites, trails and B.C. parks” Issue 38 |
| 10 Apr 2025 | Ward StamerKamloops-North Thompson | How the public is heard before a forest service road “used, basically, for generations” is deactivated Issue 39 |
| 10 Apr 2025 | Ward StamerKamloops-North Thompson | What the $58 million for forest service roads will do for access across the province Issue 39 |
| 8 May 2025 | Scott McInnisColumbia River–Revelstoke | Oral question: why backcountry users’ “access is being cut off at an alarming rate” Issue 59 |
| 8 May 2025 | Sharon HartwellBulkley Valley-Stikine | Bill 14 and a regulator’s power over “people’s ability to access the back country” Issue 60 |
| 14 May 2025 | Elenore SturkoSurrey-Cloverdale | Bill 14: backcountry access “is not a privilege that should be granted by bureaucrats; it should be a right” Issue 65 |
| 27 May 2025 | Kiel GiddensPrince George-Mackenzie | Whether a resource road could be designated so it is maintained; miners’ concerns about “backcountry access closures” Issue 71 |
| 28 May 2025 | Sharon HartwellBulkley Valley-Stikine | Babine Lake resource roads and the Suskwa “in terrible shape” Issue 72 |
| 19 Feb 2026 | Scott McInnisColumbia River–Revelstoke | “Roads deactivated. Access cut off. It has got to stop.” Issue 120 |
| 23 Feb 2026 | Donegal WilsonBoundary-Similkameen | $20 million to deactivate the Kettle Valley trail between Princeton and Brookmere Issue 122 |
| 12 Mar 2026 | Ward StamerKamloops-North Thompson | Funding for the construction and maintenance of forest service roads and bridges Issue 141 |
| 12 Mar 2026 | Ward StamerKamloops-North Thompson | An update on deactivated roads, including old industrial roads used for decades Issue 141 |
| 12 Mar 2026 | Donegal WilsonBoundary-Similkameen | How the wildfire service is brought into decisions on road deactivation Issue 141 |
| 12 Mar 2026 | Donegal WilsonBoundary-Similkameen | Eastgate residents and their fire brigade, and where to raise concerns about deactivations Issue 141 |
| 12 Mar 2026 | Donegal WilsonBoundary-Similkameen | Why high-value recreation roads are torn out rather than signed “Use at your own risk” Issue 141 |
| 12 Mar 2026 | Donegal WilsonBoundary-Similkameen | The Incomappleux, and landowners who reach their property by forest service road Issue 141 |
| 12 Mar 2026 | Donegal WilsonBoundary-Similkameen | How the $16.5 million for forest service road maintenance is allocated Issue 141 |
| 15 Apr 2026 | Larry NeufeldPeace River South | A Tumbler Ridge recreation group that “promotes safe access to our back country” Issue 153 |
| 15 Apr 2026 | Kiel GiddensPrince George-Mackenzie | Bill 14: “Workers have asked why the province continues to deactivate roads after logging.” Issue 153 |
| 21 Apr 2026 | Ward StamerKamloops-North Thompson | Whether the new forest maps will show which roads are to be deactivated Issue 159 |
| 23 Apr 2026 | David WilliamsSalmon Arm-Shuswap | How long Brewster Lake Road will stay closed to the public for dam work Issue 162 |
| 21 May 2026 | Sharon HartwellBulkley Valley-Stikine | Rural communities looking for investment in resource roads and finding “omissions, delays, deferrals” Issue 181 |
| 21 May 2026 | Sharon HartwellBulkley Valley-Stikine | Why old forestry roads that serve as evacuation routes are not maintained Issue 181 |
| 27 May 2026 | John RustadNechako Lakes | Whether communities should be engaged before forestry roads are deactivated Issue 186 |
| 28 May 2026 | Scott McInnisColumbia River–Revelstoke | A petition from 1,500 people opposed to deactivating the Incomappleux Forest Service Road Issue 187 |
What cuts the other way. A minister does not ask questions in the House
or present petitions, and the opposition’s job is to do both, so the two sides have different
tools. Three things narrow that gap. Eleven of the thirty are speeches and statements, which a
minister can make as freely as anyone, and she made budget and bill speeches in this Parliament.
In the previous Parliament she was a backbencher with 123 turns, and the same search found nothing
on roads there either. Across all 191 of her turns since 2020 it matched once: a 2021 statement
on avalanche courses, which noted that backcountry users reach their winter playground by ski,
board, sled, snowshoe or climbing
. That is about avalanche safety, not road access, so it is
not counted, but we show it so a reader can judge.
The two parliaments look very different. As a backbencher from 2020 to 2024 she spoke 123 times, often at length: throne speeches, budget debates, statements about her riding. Since she became a minister she has spoken 68 times. Thirty-nine of those were introductions of visitors, and twenty-five were procedural or a line or two, such as calling the next item of government business. Four were substantive: speeches on two bills and on the budget, and a tribute to Alice Maitland.
Two fair limits. Government backbenchers rarely ask ministers questions in the House, and ministers do not present petitions, so the absence of either is weak evidence on its own. She tabled two petitions as a backbencher, one for dialysis machines at Kootenay Lake Hospital and one for watershed protection for the Wynndel irrigation district. Select standing committee transcripts were not part of this reading of the record.
06 What she said, set against what is happening
The finding is not only an absence. In those 191 turns she said a good deal that bears on these roads: about what a good MLA does, about who should have a say in a watershed, and about the rural economy. We read each of those passages against the closures above. Each one is quoted as she said it, with a link to the transcript, and with whatever cuts the other way set out in full beneath it.
She has described what a good MLA does about a road
In her first budget speech she paid tribute to Lorne Nicolson, who held Nelson-Creston for the NDP from 1972. She told the House a story about him slipping into a heated meeting at Taghum Hall, where residents were angry about the Department of Highways’ plan for the Taghum bridge.10
“Here I am. I came to listen so I could represent your concerns to the Ministry of Highways in Victoria.” He not only carried the residents’ concerns to the minister but managed to persuade the department to change its mind and to commit to the new bridge…
She closed the story by saying it depicted what type of a leader Lorne was.
Four years
later, as a minister, she paid tribute to Alice Maitland, the long-serving mayor of Hazelton, in
the same terms. She said Maitland could be very feisty when it came to addressing injustices
and defending her community
, and that her commitment to community sometimes ran her afoul
of those leading the province.
11
Both were tributes to people who had died, not statements of policy. The Taghum
bridge is a highway bridge, not a forest service road, and Maitland’s cause was control
over logging rather than road access. She has also done this herself. In 2024 the regional
director for North Kootenay Lake wrote a report on the state of the roads there. She forwarded it
to the Minister of Transportation, and the ministry said the repairs would be done. Those were
Ministry of Transportation roads, not forest service roads. In February 2025 Silverton’s
council met her and, by the local paper’s account, discussed maintenance of forest
service roads
. What she said in that meeting was not reported by the paper.06
In our view, she set the standard herself, twice, in her own words. An MLA hears the residents, takes the concern to the ministry, and changes its mind, even at the cost of running afoul of the province. She has shown she can do it for a highway. Measured against her own story, the Sitkum Creek road, the Idaho Lookout road and the rest of the ledger above are exactly the kind of thing Lorne Nicolson walked into Taghum Hall to hear about. We can find no record that she has done the same for any of them, in any forum.
She sold the backcountry as the parliamentary secretary for rural tourism
From 2022 to 2024 she was Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism. In the House she described the job in her own words, and the rural focus she was given.12
I am grateful that our Premier appointed me as Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism, specifically focused on rural tourism. Tourism is one of B.C.’s greatest economic drivers. It contributes $7.2 billion to our GDP, more than any individual resource industry.
A year earlier, speaking to a motion on the tourism industry, she told the House the
Kootenays are a nature lover’s paradise
, and offered the reason: Thanks to the
incredible back country, several cat-skiing operators offer nearly 100,000 acres of powder
terrain
. The region, she said, is home to several stunning rec sites and provincial
parks
, and she named Kokanee Glacier and Valhalla.12
Six weeks before her rural tourism statement, 7.0 kilometres of the Akokli road on the East Shore were retired in the register, with no notice on the district’s page.
A parliamentary secretary has no authority over roads. The role is to promote and advise, and in the tourism speeches she was doing what the role asks.
In our view, that is the reason it matters. Recreation sites and the backcountry are what she was asked to promote, and most of them are reached by forest service roads. A rural tourism promoter who never mentions the roads is promoting a destination without the way in.
She said Kootenay residents want a say in their watersheds
I’ve had many discussions with folks in the Kootenays about watershed security and their desire to have a more direct involvement and input regarding what happens in their watersheds.
Sitkum Creek is a designated community watershed. The only advance notice the regulation requires before its road is deactivated is 48 hours, given to the water licensees. The district has published a 51-word notice and no prescription, and nothing in the public record shows that anyone who lives there has been asked.07
What cuts the other way. Watershed protection can be an argument for deactivation. In 2014 the Ministry gave silt in the Sitkum water system as its reason for pulling the bridge, although a director of the water system disputed it at the time. She has also tabled a petition for watershed protection, for the Wynndel irrigation district in 2022. In the same 2023 speech she noted that the Duhamel Creek area, where the Heights road runs, had just been put on a flood evacuation alert, so she knows the ground there is unstable.
In our view, none of that changes the point she made herself. She told the House that people in the Kootenays want a direct say in what happens in their watersheds. Whether this road goes or stays is exactly that kind of decision, and a 51-word notice does not ask them anything.
As minister, she promised to engage local governments early
In February 2026 she described a programme of her own ministry. She said the local government
awareness project exists to make sure the government is engaging early with local governments,
that we are hearing from them, that we are trying to make sure that we’re incorporating
their needs and their ideas to make sure that these programs and policies work best for them
.14
The water system on Sitkum Creek belongs to the Sitkum Creek Improvement District. The
Province’s own page calls improvement districts local authorities
and
incorporated public local bodies governed by a board of elected trustees
. The creek is
also in Area F of the Regional District of Central Kootenay. We found no public record that either
body was engaged before the road was posted.15
The programme is about legislation and policy, and a district’s decision to deactivate a road is an operational one, so it may never have been meant to reach a case like this. Our point is narrower: the minister responsible for local governments said early engagement was the goal, and no public record shows it happening here.
She wants less logging, and has not said what happens to the roads
We know that the annual allowable cut has been unsustainable for years — decades, actually. So we’re going to have to be reducing that.
Two years earlier she had said, For too long, we have allowed logging companies to log
unsustainably.
That is a defensible position, and plenty of people in her riding share it.
But her own government has written down what follows from it. Its outdoor recreation strategy
says that as forest companies reduce operations and road maintenance at an accelerating pace,
communities risk losing valuable recreation access and the economic benefits that flow from
it.
16 That sentence is the government’s, not ours.
In our view, anyone who argues for less logging takes on a second question. Who keeps the roads open once the industry that paid for them pulls back? It is the most local question in her riding, and in 191 turns she has never once put it to the House, or to a minister in public.
She had the Forests minister’s ear
In 2021 and 2022 the Minister of Forests was a fellow Kootenay MLA, Katrine Conroy. In October 2022 she told the House the Minister of
Forests was my Kootenay collaborator. She has been an incredible mentor for me.
Earlier
that year she said the two of them had visited the Harrop-Procter community forest together.
Between February and April 2022, the register retired 14.8 kilometres of the Crawford Creek road
system on the East Shore, inside her riding. No public objection to that retirement was reported
either.17
When that minister took the 2021 forest law through committee, she told the House that road
users would be able to see planned deactivations coming. For instance, somebody that’s
been hunting on that road for years can follow, now, what’s happening
, she said, and the
information would be web-based
.18
That promise was about roads under industry permits, planned through forest landscape plans,
rather than the district’s own roads. The principle is the same. At Sitkum Creek the
web-based record is a single paragraph with no prescription, and since 9 October it no longer
carries a date either.
She knows how to advocate when she chooses to
The record shows she can do the work this would take. When Health Canada reviewed the
Cannabis Act in 2022, she ran a survey of her constituents and filed a submission. In her
words, I wanted to take the opportunity to advocate for my community and amplify their
voice.
In 2023 she told the House she would keep working
to protect the
Argenta–Johnsons Landing face, and in 2024 she said of new provincial money for the Youth
Climate Corps, That’s something that I was advocating for
.19
Those are legitimate causes, and nothing here suggests otherwise. She also knows
the backcountry. In her first months in the House she said one of the joys of living in or
visiting B.C. is exploring the wonders of our mountainous back country
, in a statement mourning
a Kaslo snowmobiler killed in an avalanche.20
In our view, that is what makes the gap hard to excuse. She has a survey, a submission and a public promise to keep working for other constituents. For the people who use Sitkum Creek, Heights, Idaho Lookout and the rest of this list, we found nothing at all, in any of the places that we looked.
As minister, a rural council put forest roads in front of her
McBride is not in her riding. It is in Prince George-Valemount, in the Robson Valley, and it comes
into this story through her ministry, not her seat. It is the kind of community her portfolio
exists for, and its council put forest roads in front of her.
In September 2025 the village’s mayor and council met the Premier at the annual convention of the
province’s municipalities about the forest service roads that had been closed near the village. On 28
November the Premier wrote back about the importance of forest service road network maintenance
to the adventure tourism economy
, and sent a copy of the letter to her, in her role as Minister of State for Local
Governments and Rural Communities.21
She also asked to meet the council herself, for half an hour on 19 January 2026, on her way to a resources forum in Prince George. On 9 December the council confirmed that it would attend, and it set three topics for the meeting. The first topic was forest roads, ahead of water and gravel.22, 23
McBride had a good deal to raise. In January 2024 the bridge into the Renshaw, its best-known snowmobile area, was closed because its middle pier was failing, and the village reported a 70 per cent drop in snowmobile activity. In May 2026 the Province’s rural development fund granted almost $400,000 toward putting that crossing back. She was not quoted in the release that announced it.24
We found no public account of what was said at that meeting. On 27 January she wrote about
the tour in her column. She described meeting leaders from more than forty local
governments from Cherryville to Prince George
, and hearing about housing, health care,
infrastructure needs, and more.
The column does not mention forest roads. Fourteen of them have
been closed, posted for removal or retired inside her own riding since 2020, as section 01 sets
out. The full McBride record is in our piece
on what lost access costs.25, 26
07 In her own words: what she has asked to protect
On the roads, the record is silent. On protecting land, it is not. In the House, in columns she signed and at public meetings the local press covered, she has spoken up again and again for old growth, for forests spared from logging and for the Province’s pledge to protect 30 per cent of its land and water. Every quotation below is her own, with a link to the source. Each is a position many people in her riding share. Read together, they show where her public advocacy on the land base has gone, and where it has not.
She had a seat at the table on the future of the forests
In June 2021, after old-growth protests outside her Nelson office, she wrote a column addressed to the protesters. She listed the deferrals her government had already made and promised more.
These are important first steps, but let’s be clear: there’s a lot more work needed to protect the old growth we all love.
In the same column she told readers the Premier had appointed her to the Cabinet Working
Group on Forestry: I will be a part of central discussions on the future of our forests
.
She added that, as the Premier’s special advisor on youth, she would make sure there are
forests for youth to work and play in for generations.
Five months later, after the Province announced it would work with First Nations to defer logging in old growth within 2.6 million hectares, she told the House how she had checked the decision at home.28
When we announced our forestry intentions paper and, most recently, old-growth deferrals, I looked to local experts in my riding to see if we are on the right scientific and moral path.
In our view, that is the right instinct, and it is the one missing from the roads. She went looking for local experts on the deferrals. We found no record of her going looking for the people who drive, ride and maintain the fourteen roads in section 01.
She has worked to spare forests from logging, for the people who live near them
In July 2024 she wrote a column about a morning hike above Nelson. She reached the trailhead,
in her words, by driving up a familiar logging road
, in a friend’s truck because her
own car lacked the clearance. Then she set out what she had been doing on the land base.29
We have committed to protecting 30 per cent of B.C.’s land and water by 2030 and there are areas, like Argenta-Johnsons Landing Face and the Ymir watershed, that I have been working to spare from logging on behalf of its proximate residents.
The same column is fair to the other side. She wrote that logging is part of our
economy
, that We need the wood to build homes for people
, and that new hiking and
biking trails would likely follow the logging she was writing about. The point is the phrase
on behalf of its proximate residents
. She has done that work for the people who live beside
a forest she wants left standing. The people who live beside Sitkum Creek, and the thirty
connections on its waterworks, have a road posted for removal. We found no record of her working
on their behalf.
A month earlier, at a public meeting in Nelson with the environment minister, she was asked about a grove of ancient cedars near the Duncan Dam that local advocates want made a protected area.30
It is such a profound area and I would love to see it protected.
BC Parks turned the protected area down that September. A year after the meeting, on 11 June 2025, the register retired 22.4 kilometres of the Duncan River forest service road, north of Meadow Creek in the same valley, with no notice on the district’s page. We found no public statement from her on that road.
“It is such a profound area and I would love to see it protected.”
She put biodiversity at the front of how the land is managed
On Earth Day 2024 she gave the House her view of how the land base should now be run.16
With our biodiversity and ecosystems framework draft that was just released, we are placing ecosystems and biodiversity at the forefront of how we’re going to be managing the land base.
We are going to be protecting 30 percent of B.C.’s land and water by 2030. When I first heard of this initiative a few years back, I thought: “Wow, wouldn’t it be amazing if we could actually get there?”
That June she took the same message to the councils of Nakusp and Kaslo, both now in
Kootenay Central. Of the 30 by 30 agreement she said, we’re really leading the way in
North America in terms of the work that we’re doing with this.
She also explained why her
government had removed the rule that habitat protection must not unduly
reduce the timber
supply.31
[The clause] basically said, you should protect these things, unless it’s too inconvenient.
In the last debate of the 2024 campaign she defended her record on old-growth protection.
They’ve known since the 70s that logging is unsustainable
, she said.32
“…you should protect these things, unless it’s too inconvenient.”
What cuts the other way. A protected area is not a road closure, and nothing we found
ties 30 by 30, the old-growth deferrals or the cedar grove to any of the fourteen roads. In
nothing we read has she dismissed motorized recreation. In 2023 she told the House that Salmo is
home to the Salmo Valley Seniors ATV Club, where groups of seniors get together and enjoy their
ATV sports
, and in 2021 she mourned a Kaslo snowmobiler killed in an avalanche. She has also
written that, as a government MLA, she does not personally decide which trees get preserved or
logged
.28, 20, 33
In our view, the pattern is the finding. When she has asked for something on the land base, in public, it has been for protection: old growth, a cedar grove, a mountain face, a watershed, 30 per cent of the province. She has spoken for the people who live beside a forest. On the roads that carry everyone else into that forest, in her own riding, we found no record that she has asked for anything at all.
08 What she could have done
When she was sworn in as minister, she told the Nelson Star what the job would be.
My focus is going to really be connecting with rural people from across the province,
listening to them, hearing their creative solutions, and then bringing those to ministers and then
also to the premier.
33 In a column a few
months earlier she had written that, as a government MLA, I don’t personally decide which
roads get paved, which trees get preserved or logged
, and in the next sentence she described
the job instead: My job is to represent your collective and individual opinions to the
government.
Both statements are true, and they describe exactly the work that this ledger of
closed roads needed from her.
She cannot sign a road open or closed. That power belongs to the Minister of Forests and the
district manager. Short of that, an MLA has every tool she has used for other causes. She can
write to the district and publish the letter. She can ask the Minister of Forests in writing to
hold a deactivation until a prescription is published and the people who use the road have seen
it. She can make a statement in the House, or hold a public meeting in Nelson. As the minister
whose portfolio work[s] across all of the ministries
, she can raise it at the cabinet table
where the Forests budget is set. What an MLA
can actually do sets out each of these tools, and how any member can use them.
As a minister she is bound by cabinet solidarity, which limits how far she can dissent from a government decision in public. It does not stop her raising the roads at the cabinet table, in a statement about her riding, or at a public meeting in Nelson that anyone can attend.
We found no public record that she has used any of them on any road in her riding. If she has done so privately, the record will show it once she publishes it, and we will say so here, with the same prominence.
09 Everyone on the ballot in Kootenay Central
Four people are on the ballot on 24 October: Brittny Anderson for the BC NDP, Nicole Charlwood for the BC Green Party, Hunter Corrigal for OneBC and Gordon Skulnec for the Conservative Party.34
| Question |  Brittny AndersonIncumbent |
 Nicole Charlwood |
 Hunter Corrigal |
 Gordon Skulnec |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| In the Legislature | 191 speaking turns since 2020; “forest service road” never said | No seat to raise it from | No seat to raise it from | No seat to raise it from |
| Lobbied on road deactivation | Yes, 22 August 2026, as a sitting minister | Not a member | Not a member | Not a member |
| On Sitkum Creek and the roads in this riding | No public statement found | No public statement found | No public statement found | No public statement found |
| Does the campaign page name access? | No. It says she enjoys hiking. | No | No. It mentions a cycling club and ski coaching. | No |
| The party’s published line | “More access to B.C. Parks”; nothing on resource roads | Park investment “alongside conservation and public access”; nothing on roads | No position on public access | “Guaranteed access to public lands and wild areas”; no road commitment |
Candidates are listed with the incumbent first, then in ballot order. Anderson’s photograph is her official Province of British Columbia portrait; the others come from each party’s own candidate pages. Party logos are from each party’s own website, read in October. For Charlwood, Corrigal and Skulnec, “no public statement found” covers their candidate pages and party platforms, read 9–10 October 2026.34
Charlwood, Corrigal and Skulnec have never held a seat, and a candidate who has not yet been asked about these roads has not refused to answer. All-candidates meetings in Creston and Nelson fall in the last two weeks of the campaign, and they are the place to ask. Brittny Anderson is the only one of the four with a record to judge. She has held the seat for six years and the rural communities portfolio for two, and the public registry shows she was lobbied on this exact subject on 22 August.
10 Ask all four what they will do for the roads here
The question is simple enough to put at a door or a microphone. Before a forest service road in Kootenay Central is deactivated, should the prescription be published and the people who use the road be heard? And if you are elected, will you be the one who takes their concern to the Ministry of Forests?
The letter is already written. It goes to the candidates of the party you choose, it sends from your own email address, and nothing is stored on this site. To ask more than one party, send it once for each. At the all-candidates meetings in Creston and Nelson, ask all four in person.
Backcountry Coalition is independent. This article is not authorized by any party or candidate.
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Six images that carry this story on their own: the fourteen roads, Sitkum Creek, the Province’s own register, her own words in the House, and the four candidates side by side. Made to be posted and shared.
Backcountry Coalition is independent. This article is not authorized by any party or candidate.
Suggested caption
Brittny Anderson is the BC NDP candidate for Kootenay Central and the Minister of State for Local Governments and Rural Communities.
Since 2020, fourteen forest service roads inside her riding have been closed, posted for removal or retired. Three are posted for deactivation now: Sitkum Creek, Heights and Kuskanax. Seven are closed with no date to reopen, among them Idaho Lookout, closed since 2020, where a decision promised for winter 2025 never came. Four have had sections retired in the Province’s register, which records 86 km of forest service road retired inside today’s riding since 2020.
Sitkum Creek, north of Nelson, is the second time the Province has cut that road back. The Ministry pulled the bridge in 2014, and volunteers rebuilt the crossing in 2016 on an $8,000 Columbia Basin Trust grant. On 6 July 2026 the district posted the whole upper half for deactivation, with no prescription published.
In this Parliament, eleven opposition MLAs raised forest roads and backcountry access in the House 30 times. She raised them in none of her 68 turns, and in all 191 of her turns since 2020 she never once said “forest service road”. The public lobbyists registry shows the BC Snowmobile Federation lobbied her on road deactivation on 22 August and again on 2 September 2026. Environmental and conservation groups have filed 46 lobbying reports naming her since 2024.
She has spoken up for old growth, for a cedar grove she said she “would love to see protected” and for protecting 30 per cent of B.C. On these fourteen roads we found no public statement from her, in the House, in government releases, in the local press or on her campaign page.
Kootenay Central votes on 24 October. Brittny Anderson (BC NDP), Nicole Charlwood (BC Green), Hunter Corrigal (OneBC) and Gordon Skulnec (Conservative) are on the ballot. Ask all four whether the people who use a road will be heard before it is removed.
Backcountry Coalition is independent. This article is not authorized by any party or candidate.
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#BCpoli #Kootenays #Nelson #PublicLand #ResourceRoads
Sources
- Selkirk Natural Resource District road safety information, read live on 10 October 2026 (page footer: “Last updated on October 9, 2026”), and every Internet Archive capture of the page since July 2019. The Sitkum Creek and Heights entries are dated 6 July 2026. The captures of 22 September and 4 October 2026 give “approximately June 2027” for Sitkum and “approximately July 2027” for Heights; the 9 October version gives no date for either. Heights: “there will be no ATV access after completion of deactivation”; closure of 28 August 2026 “for public safety due to landslide concerns.” Kuskanax Creek Section Two (3 Nov 2025), Goat/Kamma Creek (6 Jun 2025), Goat Range Park Branch (13 Jun 2025), Leake Creek (11 May 2026), Woodbury Fletcher (29 May 2026), Bayonne Creek (6 Jul 2026) and Powder Creek (first posted 15 Jun 2021, reposted 9 Oct 2026) are quoted from the same page. Link · 22 Sep 2026 capture
- Placing the roads and counting the register. Forest tenure road sections from the Province’s open data catalogue were read on 10 October 2026, and each road’s own line was tested point by point against the gazetted electoral boundaries: the provincial electoral districts gazetted 7 December 2023, in force from the 2024 election, and those of the 2015 redistribution, in force 2017–2024. Controls were Nelson, Creston, Kaslo, Nakusp and Yahk in Kootenay Central, and Revelstoke in Columbia River-Revelstoke. Retirements: every section with file type Forest Service Road, status Retired and a retirement date on or after 24 October 2020 within the riding’s bounding box gives 29 sections inside Kootenay Central, totalling 86.213 km, all held by the Selkirk district. By year: 0.237 km in 2020, none in 2021, 23.780 km in 2022, 14.781 km in 2023, 11.357 km in 2024, 31.343 km in 2025 and 4.715 km in 2026. On or after 18 November 2024 the total is 37.076 km. Before the 2024 election, Wilson Creek (8.2 km, March 2022) and one 1.5 km Shannon Creek spur fell in Kootenay West rather than Nelson-Creston, leaving 76.5 km in the riding she held at the time. Idaho Lookout and Kuskanax are counted in the ledger because each is still closed or pending in her riding during her tenure: the Idaho Lookout options were opened for comment in December 2024 and no decision has been posted. Wilson Creek and the Shannon Creek spur are left out of the 76.5 km because their retirements were completed while they lay in Kootenay West. The 29 sections belong to 17 forest service roads, 15 of them in her riding when retired. Four are in the ledger (Crawford Creek, Akokli, Grohman Creek and Duncan River); each of the other eleven had less than five kilometres retired. Link
- Idaho Lookout FSR 3108.01: the district’s closure entry (“Road closed at 1.5 km due to fill slope failures and culvert washout,” 1 June 2020) and options notice of 4 December 2024 (“A final decision is expected by winter 2025”), both still live on 9 October 2026; Rachael Lesosky, Local Journalism Initiative, Valley Voice, republished in the Nelson Star on 17 January 2025 as “Five options presented for restoring access to Idaho Lookout”, the source for Option 5 and the 28 February 2025 comment deadline. My Kootenay Now reported on 6 July 2026 that access would stay closed that summer. Link
- Grohman Creek FSR 0059.01: Ministry of Forests public notice, Nelson Star, 27 June 2024, closing the road at about 7.2 km under s. 22.2(3) of the Forest and Range Practices Act: “The retaining wall must be replaced prior to the road being re-opened.” The register records 3.291 km of the road (section 01RET1) retired on 5 November 2024. Link
- Where we looked for a public statement or action by her on these roads, 9–10 October 2026: all 191 of her speaking turns in the Legislature; BC Gov News; about 150 Nelson Star articles that name her, including every column she has signed; 166 issues of the Valley Voice (January 2020 to 8 October 2026, full text); the Castlegar News, Creston Valley Advance, Revelstoke Review (which now carries the Arrow Lakes News), My Nelson Now and My Kootenay Now archives; CTV’s coverage of the Trout Lake roads; her campaign page; and the provincial lobbyists registry. Not checked: her social media accounts (login required), her MLA and caucus websites (offline since dissolution), Castanet (its search could not be used), CBC’s site search and the regional district’s agendas. Link
- Valley Voice, 4 April 2024, “Area D roads”: the Area D director’s report on the roads of North Kootenay Lake, forwarded by the MLA to the Minister of Transportation; and Valley Voice, 27 February 2025, Silverton council report: council and staff “met with MLA Brittny Anderson and discussed maintenance of forest service roads, and the need for more community forest partners.” Link · 27 Feb 2025
- The Sitkum Creek record, set out with every document in our Sitkum Creek piece: the forest tenure record for road 0235 01 (6,752.7 m; the posted reach is 3,852.7 m, from station 2.9 to the end); the Sitkum community watershed record (designated 15 June 1995, thirty connections, water purveyor the Sitkum Creek Improvement District); Paul Moreau, “LETTER: Reopen Sitkum Creek Forest Service Road,” Nelson Star, 18 September 2015, the source of the 2014 bridge removal and the Ministry’s stated silt rationale; Tyler Harper, “Bridge to the bush,” Nelson Star, 20 September 2016; Columbia Basin Trust, “Sitkum Creek Recreation Trail,” committed amount $8,000, 2016/2017; and Forest Planning and Practices Regulation s. 84, the 48-hour notice to water licensees. Link
- Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia, Lobbying Activity Report 572-54391, British Columbia Snowmobile Federation, associated registration 12527-572-4, lobbying activity date 22 August 2026, posted 25 September 2026, “Arranged a meeting: No”. Office holders lobbied: Brittny Anderson (MLA for Kootenay Central, Minister of State for Local Governments and Rural Communities), Russ Laroche (Regional Executive Director, Forests), Scott McInnis and Ravi Parmar. Read 10 October 2026. Report 572-54386, same federation and topic, lobbying activity date 2 September 2026, posted 25 September 2026, “Arranged a meeting: No”, one office holder lobbied: “Brittany Anderson, Minister of State”. The sector count draws on the registry’s open data export of 20 September 2026 and on the report pages posted after it, as compiled for our piece Who gets the minister’s ear; every report is linked in the table. Link · 572-54386
- Hansard, every House transcript of the 42nd Parliament (issues 1–440, 7 December 2020 to 16 May 2024) and the 43rd Parliament (issues 1–188, 18 February 2025 to 28 May 2026), from the Legislative Assembly’s document service. Each file includes the proceedings in the Douglas Fir and Birch Rooms. Her turns were matched by the speaker attribution (“B. Anderson” in the 42nd; “Hon. Brittny Anderson” in the 43rd, distinguishing George Anderson), giving 123 and 68 turns. The control counts for “Crown land” (185) and “deactivation” (45) are across all members in the 43rd Parliament. Link
- Hansard, 42nd Parliament, 2nd Session, Issue 61, 28 April 2021, budget debate, from about 3:00 p.m.: the tribute to Lorne Nicolson and the Taghum bridge. Link
- Hansard, 43rd Parliament, 1st Session, Issue 19, 6 March 2025, tribute to Alice Maitland. Link
- Hansard, 42nd Parliament, 5th Session, Issue 399, 13 March 2024, about 1:55 p.m., statement “Tourism in Kootenays”; and 4th Session, Issue 310, 24 April 2023, about 11:00 a.m., Motion 42, tourism industry. Link · Issue 310
- Hansard, 42nd Parliament, 4th Session, Issue 324, 8 May 2023, about 11:35–11:40 a.m., Motion 47, watershed security, including the Duhamel Creek flood alert. The Wynndel petition is Issue 246, 2 November 2022. Link
- Hansard, 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session, Issue 120, 19 February 2026, about 3:15 p.m., budget debate: the local government awareness project, and “we also work across all of the ministries.” Link
- Province of British Columbia, “Improvement districts”, read 10 October 2026: improvement districts “are local authorities” and “incorporated public local bodies governed by a board of elected trustees.” The Sitkum Creek Improvement District is entry 146 on the Province’s list of improvement districts (March 2026), and the creek is in Regional District of Central Kootenay Area F. Link
- Hansard, 42nd Parliament, 5th Session, Issue 414, 22 April 2024, about 10:35 a.m. (the allowable cut), and 3rd Session, Issue 179, 4 April 2022, about 11:25 a.m. (“log unsustainably”). The recreation strategy passage is from Look West: B.C.’s Outdoor Recreation Strategy, Ministry of Environment and Parks, 21 May 2026. Link · Strategy
- Hansard, 42nd Parliament, 3rd Session, Issue 236, 24 October 2022, about 1:35 p.m. (“my Kootenay collaborator”), and Issue 186, 25 April 2022, about 10:25 a.m. (the Harrop-Procter visit). Katrine Conroy, MLA for Kootenay West, carried the Ministry of Forests’ bill through committee as minister in November 2021 (source 18). The Crawford Creek retirements are FOREST_FILE_ID 0020, sections 06 (22 Feb 2022), 07RET1 (23 Feb 2022) and 01RET1 (5 Apr 2022). Link
- Hansard, 42nd Parliament, 2nd Session, Issue 130, 16 November 2021, Committee of the Whole on Bill 23, the Forests Statutes Amendment Act, 2021, the Minister of Forests answering on the deactivation clauses for road permit roads. Link
- Hansard, 42nd Parliament, 3rd Session, Issue 251, 22 November 2022 (the Cannabis Act survey and submission); 4th Session, Issue 262, 9 February 2023, about 5:10 p.m. (the Argenta–Johnsons Landing face); 5th Session, Issue 414, 22 April 2024 (the Youth Climate Corps). Link
- Hansard, 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, Issue 29, 15 March 2021, about 10:10 a.m., private members’ statement on Avalanche Canada. Link
- Village of McBride, agenda package for the Regular Council Meeting of 9 December 2025: the Premier’s letter of 28 November 2025 to the mayor and council, copied to Brittny Anderson as Minister of State for Local Governments and Rural Communities (pp. 24–25); the staff report on her visit of 19 January 2026, on her way to the BC Natural Resource Forum (p. 27). Link
- Village of McBride, minutes of the Regular Council Meeting of 9 December 2025, resolution 051209.25, confirming the council’s attendance and the discussion topics “Forest Roads; Sewer and Water Infrastructure; Gravel Source,” published in the agenda package for the meeting of 13 January 2026. Link
- Abigail Popple, “McBride Council: FSR closures, hotel taxes, tourism committee,” The Rocky Mountain Goat, 18 December 2025: the September meeting with the Premier on the closure of forest service roads, and her request for a 30-minute meeting with the mayor and council during her January trip. Link
- BC Gov News release 2026ENV0024-000574, 21 May 2026, “Supporting outdoor recreation, communities, local economies”: almost $400,000 for the Renshaw Snowmobile Trail System Revitalization, which supports the installation of a new bridge; Brittny Anderson is not quoted. The closure and the 70 per cent figure: Andrea Arnold, “McBride irked by sudden Renshaw bridge closure,” The Rocky Mountain Goat, 12 March 2024. Link · Closure
- Brittny Anderson, “COLUMN: On the road with local governments,” Nelson Star, 27 January 2026, quoted here. We also read the village’s council agenda packages from January to March 2026 and The Rocky Mountain Goat’s reports of McBride council meetings to June 2026 for an account of the meeting, and found none. Link
- Backcountry Coalition, “McBride lost the bridge to its backcountry, then most of its riders,” 11 October 2026: the full McBride sequence, the chamber of commerce’s projection and its limits. Link
- Brittny Anderson, “COLUMN: Forestry, reconciliation and more work to be done,” Nelson Star, 23 June 2021, signed as MLA for Nelson-Creston: the old-growth passage, her appointment to the Cabinet Working Group on Forestry, and “forests for youth to work and play in.” Link
- Hansard, 42nd Parliament, 2nd Session, Issue 127, 15 November 2021, about 10:30 a.m., private members’ statement on COP26 (the old-growth deferrals and “local experts in my riding”); and 4th Session, Issue 262, 9 February 2023, afternoon sitting, throne speech debate (the Salmo Valley Seniors ATV Club). Link · Issue 262
- Brittny Anderson, “COLUMN: Reconnecting with forests and the need for responsible logging,” Nelson Star, 8 July 2024, signed as MLA for Nelson-Creston. Link
- Bill Metcalfe, “B.C. minister discusses environmental issues in Nelson,” Nelson Star, 11 June 2024, reporting the public meeting of 10 June with environment minister George Heyman; and Bill Metcalfe, “B.C. Parks rejects protected status for Duncan Lake cedar grove,” Nelson Star, 11 September 2024. The Duncan River FSR retirement (22.4 km, 11 June 2025) is from the forest tenure register, note 02. Link · BC Parks
- Rachel Lesosky, Local Journalism Initiative, Valley Voice, “MLA Anderson talks health care, environment at Nakusp, Kaslo councils,” republished by the Nelson Star, 16 July 2024. The square brackets in the quotation are the paper’s. Link
- Tyler Harper, “Kootenay Central candidates meet in Nelson for final debate,” Nelson Star, 16 October 2024. Link
- Bill Metcalfe, “Kootenay Central MLA Anderson on new cabinet role as rural advocate,” Nelson Star, 4 December 2024; and Brittny Anderson, “What Nelson-Creston MLA Anderson does,” column, Nelson Star, 10 September 2024. Link · Column
- Elections BC, final candidate list for the 24 October 2026 general election (CSV, read 10 October 2026): Kootenay Central, Brittny Anderson (BC NDP), Nicole Charlwood (BC Green Party), Hunter Corrigal (OneBC), Gordon Skulnec (Conservative Party). Candidate pages read 9 October 2026: brittnyanderson.bcndp.ca, bcgreens.ca/candidates-2026/nicole-charlwood, 1bc.ca/candidates/hcorrigal, conservativebc.ca/candidate/gordon-skulnec. Party lines: BC NDP, “Action for You”; BC Greens, Economic Vision (2026); OneBC, published priorities; Conservative Party of BC, Policy Declaration of 1 March 2025, s. 11.12(a). Link