We fact checked every claim Ravi Parmar made about Rady Creek on the record. The truth is, as expected, he was completely wrong about most of what he said to 4WDABC.

Nine minutes, outdoors, on the record. We have put the whole recording at the top of this page because the point of a fact check is that you can check it too. Every section below opens at the moment the words were said.

Source 01: 4WDABC, “4WDABC meets with Ravi Parmar,” published 28 September 2026. The channel’s own description records the meeting as a convoy “to Langford to the campaign office of Ravi Parmar.”

The scoreboardThirteen claims, checked

We checked every substantive statement he made about Rady Creek Road, the statutes, the money and his own office. Seven do not survive contact with the record. Two are true — and one of those is the statement that does the most damage to the deactivation he came to defend.

Figure 01Thirteen claims · 28 September 2026

11	DID NOT HOLD	7 false · 3 misleading · 1 self-contradictory
2	HELD UP	the road network, and mining
1	NOT SCORED	a promise — recorded and dated, checkable on 1 November
2/13	Claims that survived checkingThirteen scored across the thirteen sections — one section makes two separate claims. The promise is excluded because it cannot yet be right or wrong.	15%F

Claim 01“I’m technically not the Minister of Forests anymore”

0:13 His office FALSE

“I have 60,000 kilometres worth of forest service roads, and I should add, I’m technically not the Minister of Forests anymore because of the election, so I think this is going to be a bigger issue for whoever forms government next.”

Ravi Parmar · 0:13

The check

Dissolution ends the terms of MLAs. It does not end a minister’s office. The Province’s own guide, Managing Records During an Election, revised 21 September 2026 — the day before the writ — states it plainly: “While MLAs no longer hold office once the election writs are issued, ministers continue as members of Executive Council (Cabinet) until a new Cabinet is sworn in.”

He was appointed Minister of Forests by Order in Council 595/2024 on 18 November 2024. The Legislative Assembly members database records that appointment with no end date. The Province’s cabinet page, last updated 8 September 2026, still lists him in the post, with no note about the election.

The 2024 precedent settles it. That writ was issued 21 September and the new Executive Council was not sworn in until 18 November — the outgoing ministers held office across all 58 days.

It matters because of who holds the power. Forest Act s.121(9)(a): “The minister may, by notice… discontinue and close a right of way or forest service road.” That power did not move on 22 September. The accurate sentence was available to him: I am no longer an MLA, but I am still the Minister of Forests. The two halves have opposite consequences for a constituent asking him to act.

Sources 14 15

He was the Minister of Forests when he said he was not.

Rating:FALSE

Claim 02“$11 million budget to maintain those roads”

0:24 The money 60,000 km — TRUE$11 million — FALSE

“60,000 kilometres of forest service roads, $11 million budget to maintain those roads, and the biggest challenge that we face is with the contraction of the forest industry, who typically has been maintaining those roads.”

Ravi Parmar · 0:24

The check

The road figure is right, and he used the right category. The Ministry of Forests’ Engineering Manual of 25 May 2026 opens: “a network of approximately 60,000 km of Forest Service Roads (FSRs) in the province, including approximately 6,000 bridges and Major Culverts.” Most speakers confuse this with the ~620,000 km of all resource roads. He did not.

The budget figure is not. The Ministry of Forests’ road lines in the current Estimates are $27.84 million operating (standard object 72, Non-Capital Roads and Bridges, Vote 30) and $20.30 million capital — $48.1 million together, before BC Timber Sales’ $42.7 million statutory capital. No published budget line of $11 million for forest service road maintenance exists in any year.

There is one number in the record that rounds to his. Budget 2023 added “$35 million in operating funding” for forest service roads over three years — $11.67 million a year. That is the increment, not the budget. It is visible landing in the Estimates as an $11.4 million jump between 2022/23 and 2023/24.

So the most likely explanation is a briefing note misread: the top-up quoted as the whole. Either way the figure understates his own ministry’s road spending by a factor of about four — and he used it to explain why Rady Creek Road cannot be kept.

Sources 09 12 13

He understated his own ministry’s road budget by roughly four times, while citing it as the reason Rady Creek Road must go.

Rating:60,000 km — TRUE$11 million — FALSE

Claim 03“You could take over Rady Creek Road if you wanted to”

1:27 The offer FALSE

“As part of the transition that we need to do, we clearly have to look at amending the legislation, because right now you could, as a Four Wheel Drive Association of BC, you could take over Rady Creek Road if you wanted to.”

Ravi Parmar · 1:27

The check

A club already tried. The Trout Lake Recreation Club applied to take on the corridor — and, as the BC Snowmobile Federation records it, offered to “collaborate with the province to assume liability and establish a sustainable insurance structure to manage the corridor.” It was refused on 19 August 2026. The stated ground was not standards, not money, not capacity: Recreation Sites and Trails BC “declined… because its authority to authorize recreation trails generally does not extend to resource roads such as Forest Service Roads.”

There is no door, and the chain is closed at every link. A road may be maintained only if authorised under the Act (FPPR s.79(1)). On a forest service road the duty is the Crown’s: “the government must maintain a forest service road… until the road is deactivated” (s.79(3)). The only transfer route runs to “the holder of a road use permit” (s.79(4)) — and a road use permit issues only to an “eligible holder,” defined by Forest Act s.114 as someone with a right to harvest timber. The one route open to a non-harvester is a permit “for a natural resource development purpose” (s.119.6(2)), which FRPA s.21.1(1) defines as developing or transporting a natural resource other than timber. Recreation is not one.

His own ministry has said so, in the future tense. The Ministry of Forests’ Natural Resource Road Act FAQ lists what a future Act would do: “Support non-industrial maintainers taking on responsibility for roads no longer required by industry.” You do not promise to enable a thing that is already possible.

The one real instrument — an FS 1205 Forest Service Road Maintenance Agreement — authorises “routine” surface work, “grading, brushing, or snow plowing,” at no cost to the Ministry of Forests. It transfers nothing, carries no responsibility for the state of Rady Creek Road, and does not stop a deactivation.

Sources 23 16 17 06

The thing he says they could simply do had already been formally refused, five weeks earlier, on grounds that had nothing to do with standards.

Rating:FALSE

Claim 04“The standards… require a logging truck”

1:11 The standard FALSE

“The standards that are in the legislation speak to maintaining a road to a standard that requires a forestry company vehicle of some sort, whether it’s a logging truck or something else going by.”

Ravi Parmar · 1:11

The check

The duty he is describing is real: FPPR s.79(6)(c) requires that “the road can be used safely by industrial users.” He has stated the general rule and left out the exception that governs this exact road.

The very next section switches it off. FPPR s.81, “Wilderness roads”: if a forest service road “is not being used by industrial users” then paragraphs (a) and (b) apply only so far as needed to protect forest resources, and “section 79(6)(c) does not apply to that road.” The logging-truck standard ends by operation of the regulation the moment industrial use ends.

The Forest Practices Board puts the effect in plain terms: a wilderness road must be maintained “only to the extent necessary to ensure there is no material adverse effect on a forest resource,” and “there is no requirement that the road be safe for use by industrial users (or any non-industrial user, including members of the public).”

This is not a technicality — it is how most of the network is already held. The Board found that of forestry road-permit roads, “currently over three quarters” are kept as wilderness roads rather than deactivated, and the Auditor General found “no trigger or timeline for deactivation. FSRs can remain open indefinitely if they are maintained as wilderness roads.”

He says the legislation forces a standard nobody needs. The Forest Planning and Practices Regulation already contains the lower standard, and the Province uses it on tens of thousands of kilometres. What is missing is not a lower standard. It is a decision to apply it here.

Sources 05 11 10

The lower standard he says the law lacks is in the regulation, one section later, and most of BC’s network already runs on it.

Rating:FALSE

Claim 05“I’m not the decision maker… it’s an engineer”

2:41 The decider FALSE

“I’m not the decision maker that closes the road. It’s an engineer, and they’re bound by their credential to be able to take a look at the road. And if it’s deemed unsafe, move forward with decommissioning. Me involving myself would be me essentially going over a statutory decision maker.”

Ravi Parmar · 2:41

The check

No engineer is a statutory decision maker for this, anywhere in BC law. The Professional Governance Act confers a reserved title and conduct duties. It confers no power over Crown land and no power to decide anything for government.

The named actor in every relevant provision is the District Manager or the Minister of Forests. FRPA s.22.2 — where road use would endanger public safety — gives the power to “the district manager, for a forest service road… [who] may… close the road or restrict its use.” Forest Act s.121(9)(a) gives discontinuance and closure to “the minister.” The district’s own intake form for this file carries the printed field “AUTHORIZATION TYPE: District Manager responsible / Forest Service Road.”

The professional code assumes the opposite of what he claims. The Professional Governance Act requires every code of ethics to include a duty to “present clearly to employers and clients the possible consequences if professional decisions or judgments are overruled or disregarded.” A profession whose members can be overruled advises. It does not decide.

And on Rady Creek Road the professional went the other way. The 2026 prescription offered to preserve a narrow ATV trail across the recontoured surface, at increased cost. The Ministry of Forests’ answer is set in bold in its own report: “post-deactivation vehicular access is not required.” The direction ran from the client to the professional.

He can direct the delegate, and the statute says so twice. Forest Act s.1.1(1): the Minister of Forests may delegate a power “including a quasi-judicial power or duty” and may “provide directions that are binding on the delegate… and vary or revoke a delegation or direction.” FRPA s.120.1(4) repeats it. FRPA s.120.1(3) provides that the Act applies to the delegate “as if the delegate were the minister.”

And the delegation asked him for something smaller than any of that. They asked him to pause a procurement — a tender his own ministry issued and had not yet awarded. Declining to award is an administrative act. It touches no adjudication, no party’s rights and no reviewable determination; a deactivation decision is not among the determinations FRPA s.80(1) makes reviewable, and the Forest Practices Board has confirmed “there is no formal avenue for appealing the decision to deactivate a road.”

Sources 07 08 26

He described a chain of authority that does not exist. An engineer writes a prescription; a District Manager decides — as the delegate of the Minister of Forests, under directions that minister may give in writing.

Rating:FALSE

Claim 06“If someone… died, the province would be liable”

2:37 Liability FALSE

“It’s the liability piece. The province, because it’s a provincial road, takes on responsibility. So if someone was injured or, God forbid, someone died, the province would be liable for that.”

Ravi Parmar · 2:37

The check

The premise is inverted. A road’s provincial character is what puts it inside the shield, not outside it. The Occupiers Liability Act defines a “resource road” as a road on Crown land used by motor vehicles, expressly excluding municipal and provincial public highways — those are the roads that carry the ordinary duty.

Since 25 June 2012 the answer has been statutory. Occupiers Liability Act s.3.1: a person who uses a resource road “is deemed to have willingly assumed all risks,” and a “limited liability entity” — a term the Act defines to include “the government” — owes only the duty in s.3(3): not to “create a danger with intent to do harm” and not to “act with reckless disregard.” Being injured on the road does not make the Province liable. Dying on it does not either.

The Province has already won this exact case, over a death. In Marklinger v. British Columbia, 2026 BCSC 710 — decided five months before this meeting — a woman was killed by a falling tree on a BC recreational trail. The Court found “a dearth of records” and that “the record keeping… is lacking,” held that maintaining those records was an operational activity with no policy immunity, and still dismissed the claim: the conduct did not reach reckless disregard.

No BC court has ever held the Crown liable to a recreational user of a forest service road. Across roughly thirty-five years of the BC Supreme Court and Court of Appeal record, three judgments sit at the intersection of forest service roads and occupiers’ liability, and none reached a ruling on the merits. The Auditor General states the position flatly: users “under the Occupiers Liability Act use FSRs at their own risk.”

And the Ministry of Forests, now invoking liability, is the one that legislated it away — on purpose, to stop this happening. Its news release of 28 June 2012 was headlined “More backcountry roads to be kept open,” and said the amendments were made “to help prevent resource road closures.” The bulletin that March listed the objective: “Reduce the number of resource roads that are closed due to concerns regarding third party liability.”

Sources 02 03 04 20

The shield he says the Province lacks was built fourteen years ago, names the government explicitly, and was enacted for the express purpose of keeping these roads open.

Rating:FALSE

Claim 07“They get decommissioned very quickly” — and “back in 2021”

3:44 The clock SELF-CONTRADICTORY

“The other thing that kept coming up was when these roads get decommissioned, they get decommissioned very quickly… But it’s a bit unfair for the community that has just kind of handed a sentence like this has to happen.”

Ravi Parmar · 3:44

“But as you know, my understanding is that road was to be decommissioned back in 2021. And it’s taken from that point to this point to get where they are.”

Ravi Parmar · 8:07

The check

Four minutes apart, he says roads are decommissioned “very quickly” and that this one has been running since 2021. Both cannot describe the same file.

Neither describes the district’s actual practice, which is deliberately about a year. The Selkirk engineering technician wrote in 2022 that she was “trying to get a year ahead of the actual planned deactivation works.” The district’s live page shows Heights FSR and Sitkum Creek FSR both posted in July 2026 for deactivation about mid-2027. Rady was posted 13 November 2025 for works completed by 1 November 2026 — about eleven and a half months.

The 2021 date is wrong, and wrong in a revealing way. The prescription reads “Date Prescribed: October 7, 2020.” What happened in 2021 was not the decision to deactivate. It was the decision to remove ATV access — recorded on 11 May 2021 in an email that says access would be removed “as a result of the referral process and Selkirk Resource Management discussions,” thirteen days after the same officer told the same recipients that “every effort will be made to maintain ATV access.”

And his own timeline refutes his own legal claim. If deactivation were compulsory the moment an engineer finds a road unsafe — as he says at 2:47 — it could not then sit for five years waiting on a tender. A mandatory safety closure does not wait half a decade.

The concession inside it is worth keeping: “it’s a bit unfair for the community.” He is right. That is an argument for using the powers he says he does not have.

Sources 27

Both halves cannot be true — and the five-year timeline he cites is itself evidence against the compulsory-closure story he told four minutes earlier.

Rating:SELF-CONTRADICTORY

Claim 08“Mining is still a big opportunity there”

3:14 Mining TRUE

“Mining is still a big opportunity there. I know mining companies are very interested…”

Ravi Parmar · 3:14

The check

This is the most factually solid statement he made, and it is the one that does the most damage to the Rady Creek deactivation he is defending.

The corridor is not being closed because access to that ground has stopped having value. It is being closed to one kind of user. Mineral tenure is acquired and held online, and a claim holder retains the right to access their claim. Recreation has no equivalent standing anywhere in the statute.

Mackenzie’s own UBCM resolution — endorsed by the membership in September 2025 — names the same asymmetry from the other end, warning that road closures stop “tourism, industrial activities such as mining, fighting forest fires.”

So the Province’s position on Rady Creek Road, stated in one breath: too unsafe and too expensive to keep open for the public, and simultaneously a live opportunity for industry. Both can be administered at once because the statutes give one of them a mechanism and the other nothing.

Sources 18

True — and it concedes that what is being withdrawn is not access to the ground, but public access to it.

Rating:TRUE

Claim 09The Mackenzie “test case”

5:30 The precedent FALSE

“We had an issue in Mackenzie where this was very similar. There’s a gentleman by the name of Peter Kyllo… And so Peter came to me at a UBCM meeting two years ago saying, I want to take on the maintenance of this road. And we kind of used it as a bit of a test case for how challenging and how difficult that is.”

Ravi Parmar · 5:30

The check

The meeting could not have happened when he says. Peter Kyllo is a councillor of the District of Mackenzie — not its mayor, and not the Shuswap MLA of the same surname. He lost the October 2022 election and entered council by by-election on 16 November 2024, declared 18 November. Parmar was appointed Minister of Forests on 18 November 2024. At UBCM 2024 neither man held the office he would have needed: Kyllo was a private citizen, and the Minister of Forests at that convention was Bruce Ralston. The only workable reading is UBCM 2025 — one year ago, not two.

Mackenzie’s documented ask is the opposite of the one he describes. Resolution 2025-EB68, “Forest Service Road Closures,” sponsored by Mackenzie and endorsed by the UBCM membership, asks “that local government be fully consulted and actively engaged in decision-making processes prior to any ministry action regarding the closure of forest service roads.” It is a request to be consulted before closure. It is not an offer to take on maintenance.

No test case exists in the public record. No pilot, agreement, funding or program under which Mackenzie took on resource-road maintenance can be found, and Mackenzie’s own district road-safety page carries no deactivation entries — there is no road there to run one on.

What the resolution actually produced was a non-answer. The Ministry of Forests’ published response: it “is committed to improving communication with local governments… This includes exploring options for maintaining access.” Improved communication and exploring options. No devolution, no pilot.

The ask is also not new. The UBCM resolutions committee records members endorsing versions of it in 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2020 and 2024. At the 2026 convention he had just attended, three more were tabled and each was ruled existing policy.

Sources 19

A request to be consulted, described as an offer to take on road maintenance — and a “test case” that does not appear anywhere in the record.

Rating:FALSE

Claim 10“We can’t really do anything until the election’s over”

5:10 The writ MISLEADING

“The current issue is we’re in an election and we can’t really do anything until the election’s over.”

Ravi Parmar · 5:10

The check

The caretaker convention is real, and it restrains a specific thing. The Province’s own guide: during the interregnum government avoids “major policy initiatives” and “new contracts or undertakings that would bind an incoming government.”

The same paragraph concedes the point. “While Cabinet members and Deputy Ministers (DMs) are legally able to make ministerial decisions during these periods, in practice all major actions and decisions are deferred and only routine ministry business continues.” It is convention, not law, and it carries no legal sanction.

Note which way it cuts. The convention’s purpose is to stop a caretaker government binding its successor. Awarding a contract that will barricade a public road by 1 November is the act that binds. Pausing an unawarded tender is the act that preserves the incoming government’s choice.

And the sequence matters: his ministry told CBC on 22 September that “the decision for deactivation is final,” the tender closed on 24 September, and the writ was issued on 22 September. The position was fixed before the convention he now cites began to apply.

Sources 22

The convention exists to stop a departing government tying its successor’s hands. Here it is being cited to justify the one act that does.

Rating:MISLEADING

Claim 11“I don’t think I fully have appreciated how big your industry is”

7:02 Awareness MISLEADING

“I don’t think I fully have appreciated how big your industry is. And so it certainly has been an eye-opener the last number of weeks… most of the information I get is from the ministry and it just seems like there’s some friction between officials and yourselves. And I’m not sure why that is.”

Ravi Parmar · 7:02

The check

Three provincial recreation bodies wrote to him by name before this meeting. ATVBC and the Public Land Use Society on 15 May 2026, asking for a stop-work order and a reply within seven days. The BC Snowmobile Federation on 6 July. The Outdoor Recreation Council of BC on 4 August, on behalf of “more than 130 organizational members and, through them, over 200,000 British Columbians.”

No published reply to any of them exists. ATVBC put it in a press release on 4 June: “We are shocked and disappointed that the Minister of Forests has not provided a substantive response to the coalition.” The executive director of another says on the record: “they’ve never picked up the phone, they’ve never called me, I’ve never had a conversation with them.”

His own government published the number he says he did not have. Look West: B.C.’s Outdoor Recreation Strategy, May 2026, is an entire provincial strategy on this sector — and names the cause: “as… the industrial base that has historically funded road maintenance continues to shrink, new solutions need to be explored.”

On the “friction” he says he cannot explain: his ministry declined a CBC interview on this road, and the district manager wrote to the Trout Lake club on 27 November 2025, “I am unable to participate in a meeting with your group.” The same office’s stakeholder list — licensees, miners, tenure holders, trappers, guide outfitters, landowners — has no place on it for a recreation organisation.

The first documented occasion on which the Minister of Forests met a recreation delegation face to face is day seven of an election campaign, in his own campaign office.

Sources 24 21

Not a failure of information. Three letters, nineteen weeks, and no reply — then a meeting once the writ was out.

Rating:MISLEADING

Claim 12“Reach out… to the Selkirk district office”

7:49 The referral MISLEADING

“My suggestion to you would be that the next appropriate step… is to reach out, I believe to the Selkirk district office in that case, and to be able to have a conversation.”

Ravi Parmar · 7:49

The check

It is the right office in principle — the file lives there and the District Manager sits there. In fact the referral is circular.

That office had already declined to meet them. District Manager to the Trout Lake club, 27 November 2025: “I am unable to participate in a meeting with your group.”

And it had already refused the transfer, in writing, thirteen days before this meeting. To the BC Snowmobile Federation, 15 September 2026: “The Ministry of Forests will not consider transferring the road to another entity due to significant safety concerns and environmental concerns and will complete our deactivation work to relieve ourselves of liability.”

So Parmar sent a delegation to the office that had refused to meet them, to ask for a transfer that office had refused in writing a fortnight earlier — while saying he could not intervene because that office had decided.

Sources 25

Sent to the one office that had already said no to both the meeting and the transfer.

Rating:MISLEADING

Claim 13“I’ve asked my team to start looking into it”

5:23 Commitments PROMISE — TRACKED

“I’ve asked my team to start looking into it. It’s enough of an issue that’s coming up that I think it requires that.”

Ravi Parmar · 5:23

“One of the things that we’re hoping to use is AI to be able to actually have a website and maybe an interactive map that shows—”

Ravi Parmar · 4:06

The check

These are commitments, not claims, and we are not scoring them as lies. We are recording them so they can be checked.

Both need their dates kept beside them. “Starting to look into it” was said on 28 September. His ministry had told CBC on 22 September that “the decision for deactivation is final,” and the tender it would have to stop closed on 24 September. The looking began after the deciding ended.

The interactive map has no trace in any public document — no budget line, no procurement, no service-plan item.

He also said: “if my party is successful, I’d certainly be interested if I’m back as Minister of Forests, to having those conversations.” He cannot promise the portfolio — appointment to cabinet is the Premier’s prerogative — and his conditional is correct. The trackable item is the interest, not the office.

The test is simple and it is dated. Does anything — a letter, a hold on the award, a direction under Forest Act s.1.1(1) — appear in the record before the barricade goes in on 1 November 2026?

Recorded, dated, and checkable on 1 November.

Rating:PROMISE — TRACKED

The scorecardNine minutes, graded

Counting verdicts tells you what he said. It does not tell you how he answered. These are the measures that matter when the person in front of you holds the office that can stop the thing you came about — and every grade below is tied to the claims checked above, not to an impression.

Figure 02Graded against the thirteen checked claims

F	Factual accuracyThirteen sections, thirteen scored claims — one section makes two. Seven false, three misleading, one self-contradictory, two true. The road-network figure was right; the budget attached to it was out by about four times.
F	Candour about his own powerHe opened by saying he was “technically not the Minister of Forests anymore.” He was — OIC 595/2024, no end date — and the power to discontinue and close a forest service road is the minister’s own. He then said directing the decision-maker would be overstepping; the Forest Act says in terms that he may direct the delegate in writing.
F	MisdirectionThree deflections, each to somewhere he was not. To an engineer, who holds no statutory authority over a road. To the election, which restrains binding your successor — not pausing an unawarded tender. And to the Selkirk district office, which had refused to meet the club and, thirteen days before this meeting, refused the transfer in writing.
D	Grasp of his own fileHe named the road network correctly where most get it wrong. He was then wrong on the budget, wrong that the law forces a logging-truck standard (section 81 switches it off), wrong about who decides, wrong that the Province carries the liability, and a year out on the date.
D−	Engagement before the cameraThree provincial recreation bodies wrote to him by name across nineteen weeks. No published reply to any of them. The first time he met a recreation delegation face to face was day seven of an election campaign, in his own campaign office. He did stand there and answer for nine minutes.
D−	Promises versus substance“I’ve asked my team to start looking into it” — six days after his ministry told CBC the decision was final, four days after the tender closed. An AI map with no budget line, no procurement and no service-plan item. And an interest in talking conditional on being re-appointed.
B−	Willingness to concedeHis best measure, and it is genuine. Unprompted, he said mining is still a live opportunity on that ground — the one statement that most damages the decision he came to defend. He called the process “a bit unfair for the community.” He admitted he had not appreciated the sector’s size, and that he could not explain the friction with his own officials.

Overall: D−. Not because he was hostile — he was courteous, and he took a meeting nobody made him take. Because on the four things a minister is actually for — knowing the file, holding the power, using it, and saying so plainly — he was wrong, and the record was available to him in his own ministry’s documents.

In fairnessWhat he got right

A fact check that only finds one kind of answer is not a fact check. Four things he said are correct, and the piece is stronger for saying so.

The road network figure is right, and he used the right category. Approximately 60,000 kilometres of forest service roads, carrying roughly 6,000 bridges and major culverts. Most people arguing about this confuse it with the roughly 620,000 kilometres of all resource roads in the province. He did not.

A minister genuinely should not direct the outcome of a quasi-judicial decision. The instinct is real and it matters. It simply does not attach to this decision, which has no hearing, no parties, no requirement to give reasons and no appeal.

There is a real professional duty to hold public safety paramount. He is right that a credentialed professional carries a binding obligation. He is wrong only about what it obliges them to do: advise, and record the consequences when they are overruled.

Mining is a live opportunity on that ground. True, and stated without prompting. It is also the sentence that most clearly exposes what is actually happening, which is why we have given it a section of its own.

And one more, which is not a fact but is worth recording: he took the meeting. Nobody made him stand in a parking lot for nine minutes and answer questions on camera. Three letters from three provincial organisations produced nothing for nineteen weeks; a group that drove to his office got further in nine minutes than any of them did in four months. That is a finding about how access works in British Columbia, and it is not to his credit — but the standing there and answering is.

The findingEvery one of these was a choice, and he described them as constraints

Read the thirteen answers together and a single shape appears. A budget four times larger than the one he quoted. A lower legal standard that already exists, one section further down the same regulation. A liability shield the Province built fourteen years ago for the express purpose of keeping these roads open, under which it has never once been held liable to a recreational user, and under which it won a case involving a death five months before this meeting. A decision maker who is not an engineer but a District Manager, exercising the Minister of Forests’ own power, under a delegation that minister may direct in writing. A club that had already offered to carry the liability and been refused on grounds that had nothing to do with any of it.

None of those is a constraint. Every one is a decision that has been taken, and that could be taken differently, by the office he was holding while he explained that he no longer held it.

He is right that the community was handed a sentence. He was, at that moment, the person who could have suspended it.

Minister, you told them the engineer decides. The engineer offered to leave the trail open. Your ministry wrote “not required” in bold, in its own report.

Take actionPut it to them before the vote