Why is the NDP campaigning against American takeovers, if they already handed 7,321 km² of our backcountry to an American-owned conglomerate — CMH, who told them rural British Columbians are the problem?

Sources

1. ↩↩↩CMH Galena Heli-ski Management Plan, 15 July 2020 — title page and § 1–2.1, released as pages 33 and 34 of 85 in response package FOR-2023-31283. Title page: “MFLNRO File Number: 4401094 · Adventure Tourism (Heli-skiing) Management Plan for CMH GALENA · Canadian Mountain Holidays LP”, with the licensee’s block completed — “Dave Butler”, Date: July 15, 2020 — and the facing block, “This Management Plan has been approved by MFLNRO”, left blank as to both signature and date in the released copy. Page 34: “Canadian Mountain Holidays LP (LP0604337) is a well-established adventure tourism business that has been in operation for nearly 60 years”; “This is an up-date of the management plan approved by government in December of 2003 and is the key component in our request to replace — as per policy - the existing License of Occupation (#340826) for an additional 45-year term”; “The subject operating area… is located north, east and south of Trout Lake in the Badshot Range of the Selkirk Mountains”; “The tenure covers 1167.44 sq km.” Every page of the plan carries the footer “CMH Galena — Heli-ski Management Plan — July 15, 2020” and the stamp “Page N of 85 FOR-2023-31283”, so the page citations in this piece are the release’s own. https://docs.openinfo.gov.bc.ca/Response_Package_FOR-2023-31283.pdf
2. ↩↩Same plan, § 2.2 ski-zone table, Silver Cup zone — FOR-2023-31283 page 36 of 85. The zone is recorded at 46.91 km² with 22 runs: “This is a new zone — previously part of the Lardeau Zone - that includes a series of runs in and around Silver Cup Ridge. With one exception, these are generally north-facing runs that lie directly south of the lodge. While ski-able in many snow and weather conditions, they are becoming increasingly affected by (and less useable as a result of) unregulated snowmobile use from Trout Lake. Issues with respect to mountain caribou are detailed in sections below.” The table’s own total for the thirteen zones is 1167.44 km². is a shot of that row.
3. ↩↩↩Same plan, § 7.1 Public Use and Access — FOR-2023-31283 page 40 of 85. Reproduced as . Opening sentence: “Our operations do not restrict public access in any way, and our use of the helicopter allows us to utilize many areas that are not readily accessible to the general public.” The same section records that “the Ministry of FLNRO also manages public recreation on Crown land in the operating area, to a limited degree”; that “CMH is aware that public recreationists can (do) use this road” — the Lardeau FSR; that “there is now an increasing amount of snowmobile use of the area, particularly in the vicinity of Silver Cup Ridge. There are some areas that we can no longer ski due to the snowmobile traffic”; and that CMH “will continue to work with the Nakusp Snowmobile Club and the BC Snowmobile Federation on ways to resolve these issues, and to report acts of non-compliance to government.” The same page records that “CMH Galena operates in a manner that is in accordance with the operation guidelines set out by HeliCat Canada.” The characterisation of the two quoted sentences as a request that something be done about public use is this publication’s reading, and is presented as such in Section 06.
4. ↩Same plan, § 7.3 Other Commercial or Public Recreation Interests — FOR-2023-31283 page 41 of 85. “As per the Adventure Tourism policy, we recognize that we do not have exclusive use of this area, but we expect that MFLNRO / FCBC will ensure that other AT proposals that may be made in the area will be compatible with our operations. We also expect to continue to receive referrals for any new AT or public recreation (non-profit) applications that may be made in or adjacent to the area in the future.” The same acknowledgement of non-exclusivity appears eight times across the release, at pages 15, 23, 31, 41, 50, 58, 73 and 82, with small wording variations between plans; the Bobbie Burns version at page 73 adds that compatible proposals should “have our agreement” before acceptance.
5. ↩CMH to the Director of Authorizations — FOR-2023-31283 page 4 of 85. “… this also comes at a time when we are also dealing with the uncertainties of a range of wildlife issues, growing unmanaged public recreation (which is creating both safety and experiential issues for us), along with other issues such as old growth deferrals (which impacts our ability to manage our access to existing ski terrain).” Recorded caution: pages 3 to 6 are a threaded document in which Ronmark’s letter of 9 November 2022 carries CMH’s replies interleaved, and at least one further sentence on page 4 reads as the Ministry’s rather than the company’s. Only paragraphs whose authorship is unambiguous from the surrounding text are quoted.
6. ↩↩Same document — FOR-2023-31283 page 6 of 85. “Tracy — thanks for taking the time to read this. I’m sure you get a sense of the deep frustration and concern we feel. On almost every front — tenure term, wildlife issues, lack of management of public recreation, and even the old growth deferrals (which is another example of unintended consequences...), we — as a company and as a sector -- are facing a death by a thousand cuts. With no one in government acting as an advocate or even as a coordinator of the various challenges facing us, we are left to battle each one, silo by silo, by ourselves.” And: “I hope that you will consider all of this information in your decisions around our tenures --- not just what you receive from your government colleagues.”
7. ↩↩↩The email thread establishing who was writing to whom — FOR-2023-31283 pages 1 to 3 of 85. Butler to Ronmark, 15 March 2023, 7:33 AM, subject “RE: CMH mid-term tenure replacements”, signed “Dave Butler, RPF, RPBio · Director of Sustainability · CMH Heliskiing and Summer Adventures”. Ronmark’s block on page 2: “Tracy Ronmark, MRM, P.Ag. · Director of Authorizations · Kootenay Boundary Region · Ministry of Forests”. Butler, 14 March 2023: “I hope you received my email of November 28, 2022” and “Can you please confirm for me that the delay in our six mid-term replacement offers relates to government’s request for refreshed management plans…” The underlying letter is Ronmark’s of 9 November 2022, 1:23 PM, subject “Follow up from meeting of Oct 6”. Discrepancy noted and unresolved: CMH refers throughout to six mid-term replacements; the Ministry’s letter of 17 February 2022 at source 08 lists five land files.
8. ↩↩Lauren Knowlan, Authorizations Specialist, to CMH, 17 February 2022 — FOR-2023-31283 pages 84 and 85 of 85. “First Nations consultation and Agency Referrals have now concluded and include recommended conditions which I will consider as I work through the adjudication of these files.” The proposed licence language quoted in Section 07 is Article 3.11(a)–(c) and Article 5.1: record all caribou sightings; “track all GPS flight data, including flight paths and landing locations on the Land”; report on 30 April and 1 December each year; and “not… use or operate an aircraft within 2,000 metres horizontal or 500 metres vertical of caribou unless required to protect human health and safety”. And: “The following is a received recommendation specific to file 4401094 (Galena): - Request that the temporarily closed area within critical caribou winter range become a permanent closed area, which may only be amended in the event of extirpation”. The letter names the files under adjudication as “Land Files 4401957, 4401094, 400690, 4496099 and 44096100” — five, and two of those strings appear to carry typographical errors in the original.
9. ↩↩The six management plans in FOR-2023-31283, and their stated areas. Title pages at release pages 8 and 43 (CMH Gothics, LWBC file 4400690), 17 and 25 (CMH Adamants, MFLNRO 4401957, two dated versions), 33 (CMH Galena, MFLNRO 4401094), 52 (CMH Monashees, LWBC 4496099), 61 (CMH Revelstoke, MFLNRO 4496100) and 75 (CMH Bobbie Burns, MFLNRO 4492084). Zone-table totals at release pages 46 (1,249.29 km²), 20 (1,050.40), 36 (1,167.44), 54 (1,487.53), 66 (1,313.79) and 78 (1,052.63). The sum, 7,321.08 km², is our addition of those six printed figures. It does not match the 7,349 km² published at saverady.com §06; the difference of about 28 km² is unreconciled, and the page-by-page table in Section 04 should be preferred. Verified negative: the word “Rady” does not appear anywhere in the 85 pages.
10. ↩↩The HeliCat Canada guideline and memorandum references in the CMH plans — FOR-2023-31283. “CMH Galena operates in a manner that is in accordance with the operation guidelines set out by HeliCat Canada” — page 40; the same sentence, with the area name changed, appears at pages 14, 22, 30, 49, 57 and 72, seven occurrences in all. “While we fully comply with the MOU between the Province of BC and HCC (which has expired), we will continue to comply with provincial-level approaches as they are developed between government and HCC” — page 41; the same statement, with the association’s name written out in some copies and abbreviated in others, appears at pages 16, 24, 32, 51, 59 and 74.
11. ↩↩↩Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, Briefing Note for Decision, CLIFF 260639 — response package FOR-2023-31284, release pages 5 to 7 of 21, being pages 1 to 3 of 5 of the note. The note’s own DATE field reads “February 1, 2021”; it is prepared for John Allan, Deputy Minister, and carries “Approved” against his name dated 2021.02.10. Prepared by Michelle Porter, Director, Lands Branch, and Darcy Peel, Director, Caribou Recovery Program. Source for: “The lack of similar improvements from the adventure tourism sector, who carry out extensive helicopter-supported commercial recreation activities on Crown land under the Land Act, diminishes the credibility of provincial efforts to recover caribou”; “HeliCat Canada (HCC) voluntarily committed their members to conduct training and monitoring in caribou habitat through a Memorandum of Understanding which expired in 2017, but this has not been renewed due to failed negotiations with HCC”; “Tenures for adventure-guiding on Crown land in BC are issued under the Wildlife Act (for angling and hunting only), the Park Act or the Land Act”; and “HCC, who has historically resisted requests to voluntarily supply GPS flight data, may resume lobbying efforts to block these changes, but recent meetings with industry representatives indicate an understanding and willingness to work with government to implement the measures.” Passages withheld on the released pages are marked with section references including s. 13 and s. 14. https://docs.openinfo.gov.bc.ca/Response_Package_FOR-2023-31284.pdf
12. ↩↩↩Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, Meeting Note, CLIFF 41323, 16 May 2024 — response package WLR-2024-41783, 2 pp. Prepared for the Hon. Nathan Cullen; reviewed by Deputy Minister Lori Halls and A/Assistant Deputy Minister Jennifer Psyllakis on 17 May 2024; prepared by Tyler Muhly, Manager, Terrestrial Habitat. The REGARDING field reads “Meeting with Ross Cloutier, CEO, HeliCat Canada and Dave Butler, VP of Sustainability, Canadian Mountain Holidays regarding recent Narhwal interview on requirements for heli-ski operators in caribou habitat” — the misspelling is the Ministry’s. Source also for: “Other industries (e.g., mining and forestry) are required to abide by timing windows and setback distances… These industries also provide detailed spatial data on their operational activities”; “Data for the pilot study will be provided by heli-tourism operators on a voluntary basis and as a condition of some tenures”; “limited evidence that operators comply with those recommendations”; “The province has been in discussion with Helicat Canada about obtaining flight path data for several years now. Helicat has not provided information, but some individual operators have”; and “Helicat Canada has expressed concern with providing flight path data to government. They believe the data is at risk of being made public, the heli-ski industry is being unfairly targeted, and that there is no clear plan for using the data.” https://docs.openinfo.gov.bc.ca/Response_Package_WLR-2024-41783.pdf
13. ↩British Columbia corporate registry data, retrieved 27 September 2026. Canadian Mountain Holidays Limited Partnership, registration LP0604337, status active, home jurisdiction British Columbia; and Canadian Mountain Holidays GP Inc., registration BC0965475. LP0604337 is the number printed by the licensee itself at page 34 of FOR-2023-31283, so this is a cross-check rather than an independent discovery. Not established: whether the registration date on that record is the partnership’s formation date or the date of the record in the present registry system; no paid corporate search was obtained. “CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures” is not a registered legal name and is used here only as a trade name. No record was found for “Canadian Mountain Holidays Inc.”, and that form is not used. https://www.orgbook.gov.bc.ca/entity/LP0604337
14. ↩Intrawest Resorts Holdings, Inc., Form 10-K, Exhibit 21.1 — List of Subsidiaries, filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission 23 September 2014, CIK 0001587755. Lists, with jurisdictions, “Canadian Mountain Holidays Limited Partnership” (British Columbia), “Canadian Mountain Holidays GP Inc.” (British Columbia) and “Alpine Helicopters Inc.” (federally chartered). A sworn securities filing naming the same two British Columbia entities as the corporate register is the strongest corroboration available for the legal identity. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1587755/000114036114036337/ex21_1.htm
15. ↩Alterra Mountain Company, privacy policy, retrieved 27 September 2026 (page states UPDATED: December 2025). Enumerates “Alterra Mountain Company, its subsidiaries, including… CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures…” and gives the company’s address as 3501 Wazee Street, Suite 400, Denver, CO 80216. Alterra’s current corporate boilerplate describes the company as headquartered in Denver and lists “CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures and Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing in British Columbia” among its destinations. https://www.alterramtn.co/en/privacy-policy
16. ↩CMH’s own newsroom, 30 August 2021. “CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures, which is owned by Alterra Mountain Company, will fold Purcell Heli-Skiing’s business and ski tenure into its existing operations.” The corresponding Alterra release of 31 August 2021 states that Purcell “will be incorporated into Alterra’s CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures, adding nearly half a million acres” and describes the acquisition as including “a tenure license for 495,000 acres… in Golden, British Columbia”. https://stories.cmhheli.com/heli-skiing/news-winter/introducing-cmh-purcell/
17. ↩Intrawest Resorts Holdings, Inc., Form 8-K exhibits, 10 April 2017 and 31 July 2017. The April filing is headed “Intrawest Resorts Holdings, Inc. to be Acquired by Affiliates of Aspen Skiing Company and KSL Capital Partners” and records “$23.75 in cash for each share of Intrawest common stock, representing a total valuation of approximately $1.5 billion including debt obligations”; its “About Intrawest” text describes an adventure travel business “the cornerstone of which is Canadian Mountain Holidays”. The July filing is headed “Affiliates of KSL Capital Partners and Henry Crown and Company Complete Transactions to Combine Three Major Resort Companies” and records completion of the acquisition on that date. Noted and not resolved: the April filing names Aspen Skiing Company, L.L.C. and the July filing names Henry Crown and Company, and neither document states the relationship between them; this piece therefore names only what each filing names. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001587755/000156761917001545/s001803x2_ex99-1.htm
18. ↩Alterra Mountain Company founding release, 11 January 2018, subtitled “Formed by Affiliates of KSL Capital Partners and Henry Crown and Company”, describing “a community of 12 iconic year-round destinations, including the world’s largest heli-ski operation” and listing “CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures in British Columbia”. Not established: current ownership percentages, and whether the structure changed following a reported continuation vehicle for Alterra in 2024. No present-tense ownership share is stated in this piece. https://www.alterramtn.co/en/news/announcing-alterra-mountain-company
19. ↩Intrawest Resorts Holdings, Inc., Forms 10-K for the years ended 30 June 2014 (filed 23 September 2014) and 30 June 2016 (filed 8 September 2016). 2014: “CMH has been providing heli-skiing trips for the past 50 years and currently operates in the Purcell, Selkirk, Monashee and Cariboo mountains of eastern British Columbia from 11 lodges, nine of which we own”, and “CMH’s operating area encompasses 3.1 million acres of terrain granted under renewable 10 to 30 year licenses from the government of British Columbia”. The same filing sets out the tenure position: “Pursuant to British Columbia’s Land Act, tenures are issued by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations as Licenses of Occupation or Leases outside park and protected areas, on lands designated as vacant Crown land”; “Detailed management plans and maps are submitted as a foundation for the applications for tenures”; “Most of the tenures that CMH holds are 30 years in length and are renewable at mid-term”; and “the province retains the right not to renew all or a portion of the tenures… when the land is needed for what the province deems to be a ‘higher and better use.’” In that filing the word “exclusive” is used only of Alpine Helicopters Inc. as “the exclusive provider of helicopter services to CMH”; the filing nowhere describes the land tenure as exclusive. 2016: “3.0 million tenured acres of terrain”, the same eleven lodges, and “CMH’s acreage amounts to more skiable terrain than all lift access mountain resorts in North America combined”. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1587755/000114036114036337/form10k.htm
20. ↩The acreage figures do not reconcile, and this is recorded rather than resolved. 3.1 million acres (2014 filing); 3.0 million tenured acres (2016 filing); 495,000 acres added at Golden in 2021 to “more than 3 million acres of existing terrain” (CMH newsroom, 30 August 2021); and current consumer pages still stating three million acres, with the Purcell addition not reflected. Lodge counts differ between sources at eleven and twelve. No single acreage or lodge figure is asserted in this piece. The phrase “exclusive 3 million acre tenure” appears on undated destination-marketing listings for the operator, which we cannot confirm CMH authored; it is not used in this piece.
21. ↩Ainslie Cruickshank, “Heli-skiing industry scrutinized over impacts on B.C. caribou”, The Narwhal, 22 January 2024. Describes CMH as “a subsidiary of the Colorado-based Alterra Mountain Company”, as “the largest heli-ski company in B.C.”, and states that it “holds 16 of B.C.’s 49 heli-ski tenures”. Cited as journalism, attributed in the body, and not re-derived by us from the Province’s tenure layer. This is the interview the Ministry’s meeting note of 16 May 2024 refers to. https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-heli-skiing-caribou/
22. ↩Land Act, RSBC 1996 c. 245, ss. 38, 39 and 65, King’s Printer consolidation stating “This Act is current to September 22, 2026”. s. 38 (Lease): “The minister may issue a lease of Crown land subject to the terms and reservations the minister considers advisable, including an option to purchase the land.” s. 39 (Licence of occupation): “The minister may issue a licence to occupy and use Crown land, called a ‘licence of occupation’, subject to the terms and reservations the minister considers advisable.” s. 65: a person lawfully entitled to occupy Crown land under a licence of occupation “may, for that land, take proceedings against any person for recovery of possession of, or for trespass to, the interest in the land in the same manner and to the same extent as if the person were the registered owner of the land” — the action protects the interest, and on a non-exclusive licence the interest does not include excluding the public. Neither s. 38 nor s. 39 uses the words “exclusive” or “quiet enjoyment”, and neither mentions public access. The exclusive / non-exclusive distinction is not sourced to the statute in this piece. https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96245_01
23. ↩↩↩↩Province of British Columbia, Land Use Operational Policy: Adventure Tourism (Commercial Recreation), file 12150-00, effective February 2015; the cover page is signed by the Assistant Deputy Minister, Reconciliation, Lands and Natural Resource Policy, 9 May 2024, and the amendment table records that the May 2024 change updated the cover page only, with “No amendments to the policy”. § 6.4.1, printed page 16, is reproduced as and is the source of “conveys non-exclusive use for the purpose described” and “does not allow the Tenure holder to restrict public access over the licence area”. § 6.4: “The form of AT Tenure available for guided AT activities on provincial Crown land is a non-exclusive Licence of Occupation for an Extensive Use Area. Leases are not available for guided AT activities.” § 3, definitions: “Public Access refers to the public’s ability/privilege to access provincial Crown land” — hence the wording in Section 05, which claims a limit on the holder’s authority and not a public right; and “once the TMP is approved by the Authorizing Agency, the TMP becomes part of the AT Tenure document”. § 6.1.1: an intensive-use-site licence may, at the decision maker’s discretion, “allow the Tenure holder to restrict public access to specific Improvements identified in the TMP”. Appendix 5: a lease over an intensive use site carries a “Right of exclusive use (‘quiet enjoyment’)”. § 7.1.1: the plan must “Avoid or minimize potential conflicts with other users of Crown land (including the public)”. § 7.1.2: of the risk-management plan, “Acceptance… is not tantamount to approval of the plan and does not represent formal endorsement… it is not attached to and does not form part of the Tenure.” § 7.7.8: the decision maker “will ensure there is diverse, responsible and sustainable growth in both AT and public recreation use on Crown land”, and an applicant “may be required to make reasonable efforts to obtain a JUA with an organized public recreation group”. The plain-language quotations — “A Licence of Occupation conveys non-exclusive use” and the reference to cases where “the B.C. government needs to retain future options and management control over the use of the lands” — are from the Province’s public adventure-tourism tenure page, retrieved 27 September 2026. Not established: whether an individual approved management plan is itself proactively published; what is established is that an accepted application must be published under Land Act s. 32(2), and that advertising is required for licence-of-occupation applications. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-and-industry/natural-resource-use/land-water-use/crown-land/adventure_tourism.pdf
24. ↩Forest Practices Board, Special Report FPB/SR/49, Access Management and Resource Roads: 2015 Update, April 2015. Executive summary, page i: “There is currently no agency charged with conducting access planning. There are virtually no proactive legal tools for setting access objectives. There is no legal requirement to notify the public about changes in access…” The same page records that the Ministry “maintains some access on forest service roads that serve communities, rural residences and high value recreation areas, but there is no formal mechanism for public input into that program”; and that “Other users of those roads (commercial interests, the public and First Nations) can have no expectation that access will continue to be provided once the industrial licensee no longer needs the road. Maintaining access created by industry is not the routine responsibility of government.” Recommendation 1: “a regulation bringing into force sections 93.1 and 93.3 of the Land Act, as a way to enable setting and varying of access objectives for a prescribed area that could apply to everyone; all industries and the public.” Recommendation 3: “The Board recommends government require timely notification be provided to non-industrial users of resource roads about pending changes in road status (new construction, changes in maintenance and deactivation).” Section 4.4, page 14: “Notification is the most basic level of public involvement. There is no requirement for any industry to notify the public about the construction or deactivation of a road… A subsequent concern is that there is no formal avenue for appealing the decision to deactivate a road… the only option under FRPA is to deactivate the road.” Footnote 18 to that finding: “In some cases parties other than the general public must be notified. At least 48 hours before commencement of road construction or deactivation in a community watershed, a person must notify affected water licensees or affected water purveyors. The oil and gas industry is required to notify other industrial users and landowners about deactivation of roads – 14 days prior to the event.” The report made six recommendations. https://www.bcfpb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SR49-Access-Management.pdf
25. ↩Forest Practices Board Chair Timothy S. Ryan, RPF, to Tim Sheldan, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Forest Lands and Natural Resource Operations, file 97350-20-15070, 13 July 2016 — “Re: Government reply to the Forest Practices Board recommendations in the special report Access Management and Resource Roads: 2015 Update.” “We are disappointed that government is not adopting our recommendations but we are hopeful that government has a plan to improve access management and that the initiatives it has underway will be helpful.” “We hope that in five years if we undertake another review of access management, the issues identified in our 2005 report and in our 2015 report will have been resolved.” “We will now consider this filed closed.” Not established: whether the Board has revisited access management since. We found no successor report and do not assert that none exists. https://www.bcfpb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SR49-Response-to-Recommendations.pdf
26. ↩Land Act, Part 1.1 — ss. 7.1, 7.2 and 7.4, consolidation current to 22 September 2026. s. 7.1 defines “tenure” as “(a) any interest in Crown land that is granted or otherwise established under a prescribed instrument, or (b) a prescribed designation or other status that, under an enactment, is given to, conferred on, or made or otherwise established in relation to Crown land”, and “tenure authority” as “a prescribed person”. s. 7.2(1) requires the minister to maintain “the electronic database known as the Integrated Land and Resource Registry”; s. 7.2(2): “A tenure authority must submit prescribed information in respect of a tenure to the integrated registry”. s. 7.4(1): “Subject to this section, the minister must make information in the integrated registry accessible to the public by electronic means and on conditions satisfactory to the minister.” Verified negative: no provision in Part 1.1 permits a person who uses Crown land to enter an interest in the registry. Source URL as at source 22.
27. ↩Province of British Columbia, E-Referral. Source for “Referrals are sent to existing tenure holders, government agencies, and invited members of the public” and “For certain authorizations, it is a legal requirement to notify affected groups or individuals of the proposed authorization.” Not established, and material: the page does not say who decides whom to invite, on what criteria, whether any route exists by which a member of the public may ask to be invited, or which authorizations carry the legal notification requirement. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/natural-resource-use/natural-resource-permits/fcbc-locations/e-referral
28. ↩↩↩The two stakeholder notifications, Selkirk Natural Resource District, 28 April and 11 May 2021, sent by an engineering technician of the district under the account designation FLNR:EX. The 28 April notification, 11:11 AM, subject “Stakeholder Notification of Permanent Deactivation of Rady Forest Service Road, Trout Lake Area”, went to five addresses outside government and stated “Every effort will be made to maintain ATV access on the Rady Forest Service Road section”; its closing line, immediately above the signature block, reads “Mine claims and water users will be addressed in a separate e-mail.” The 11 May reversal, 4:24 PM, subject “Amendment to Permanent Deactivation works on Rady Forest Service Road, Trout Lake Area”, went to those five and a second private resident, and stated “it has been decided that there will be NO ATV ACCESS LEFT OPEN AFTER THE RADY FSR IS PERMANENTLY DEACTIVATED.” Both are reproduced in full, with recipients, at saverady.com §04 and §07. CMH is on both lists. Not established: which of the two private residents was the address added on 11 May, and neither is named here; and whether the promised separate email to mine claims and water users was ever sent — it is not in anything released to us.
29. ↩Consultation Request Intake Form, 27 April 2021, ministry file 11250-30-0321.02, project 71M2707. A form of “Kootenay Boundary Region – First Nations Relations”, addressed internally: the district’s request to its own consultation unit that consultation be run, not the referral and not a stakeholder notice, and this piece does not describe it as either. Source for “Every attempt will be made to maintain ATV access over the FSR and up onto the Silvercup Ridge once the deactivation works are complete”, for the authorization field “District Manager responsible / Forest Service Road”, and for the legislation field listing “Forest Planning and Practises Regulation Sections, 37,38,40,50,54,56,57,59,60,70,82,83,84” — s. 84 among them. We hold page one only, which ends mid-section, and nothing is asserted about its later pages. The form carries no King’s Printer number, and no blank template or second instance was located on the public web. Also not established: whether the road sits in a community watershed, and whether the s. 84 notice was given and to whom.
30. ↩Forest Planning and Practices Regulation, B.C. Reg. 14/2004, ss. 82, 83, 84 and 85, King’s Printer consolidation stating “This consolidation is current to September 22, 2026”. s. 84, headed “Notice — road in community watershed”, reads in full: “At least 48 hours before commencement of road construction or deactivation in a community watershed, a person must notify affected water licensees or affected water purveyors.” s. 83 requires a warning sign “At all times while a road is being deactivated”. s. 85 requires an agreement holder to notify the minister before beginning timber harvesting or road construction and does not mention deactivation. The s. 82(1)(a) barricade standard, including the words “other than all-terrain vehicles”, is set out and argued in full at saverady.com §11, and that treatment is the source for it on this page. https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/14_2004
31. ↩Forest and Range Practices Act, SBC 2002 c. 69, ss. 22.2 and 23.2, consolidation current to 22 September 2026. s. 22.2 is headed “Non-industrial use of a road”. Subsection (1): a forest service road “may be used by any person without charge for a purpose other than a timber harvesting purpose, silviculture purpose or natural resource development purpose”. Subsection (2) makes action under subsection (3) available where use “would likely (i) cause significant damage to the road, (ii) cause significant sediment delivery, or (iii) endanger property, public health or public safety”, or where a vehicle or animal on the road would likely cause damage or danger. Subsection (3)(a): in those circumstances the district manager “may (i) close the road or restrict its use”. No notice or consultation duty is attached to that power anywhere in the section. s. 23.2 gives the minister power to order an agreement holder to deactivate, the order specifying location and completion date. https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/00_02069_01
32. ↩↩The Province’s own mapping, BC Geographic Warehouse, retrieved 30 August 2026, as published and documented at saverady.com §07. The Crown-tenures layer records the polygon filed under Crown lands file 4401094, tenure document 340826, purpose commercial recreation / heli ski, location Trout Lake, status disposition in good standing, measuring 116,704 hectares — against the 116,744 hectares the management plan states for itself, 0.03 per cent apart. The forest-tenure road layer records section 0321 02 as ACTIVE, named “TROUT LAKE-RADY CR”, 724 vertices, mapped length 4,395.98 m, held by the Selkirk Forest District. None of its 724 vertices falls inside the Galena polygon, and the minimum distance from any point on the line — not merely from a sampled vertex — is 723.45 m. Silvercup Ridge falls 463.77 m inside the boundary. Galena itself measures 116,704.43 ha. All 724 road points fall inside the snowmobile closure, which is the polygon with id 195 in WHSE_WILDLIFE_INVENTORY.AMA_SNOWMOBILE_MGMT_AREAS_SP, 97,500.68 ha. Trap recorded: a second polygon in that same layer, id 197, is also named “Central Selkirks”, measures 218,402.50 ha, and contains neither the road nor the ridge. A bounding-box query returns both, so the 97,501 ha figure and every containment statement in this piece are id 195 and are cited that way. Distances and areas were computed in EPSG:3005 from archived responses, and the queries are linked on that page.
33. ↩Forest and Range Practices Act, Part 5, Division 3 — Recreation, ss. 56, 57 and 58, consolidation current to 22 September 2026, read verbatim. s. 56(1) gives the minister power to order the establishment, the variance of boundaries and the disestablishment of an interpretive forest site, recreation site, recreation trail or trail-based recreation area, and states no application right. s. 57(1): “Unless authorized in writing by the minister or under another enactment, a person must not (a) construct, (b) rehabilitate, or (c) maintain a trail or other recreation facility on Crown land”. s. 58 is headed “Protection of recreation and range resources on Crown land”; subsection (1) lets the minister by order restrict or prohibit, under (1)(b), “a recreational use anywhere on Crown land, except a use that is specifically permitted under another enactment”, where necessary “to protect a recreation or range resource or to manage public recreation use on Crown land”; subsection (3): “The minister must post a notice of an order under subsection (1) in the area to which the order applies”; subsection (4) makes it an offence to remove, alter, destroy or deface such a notice without lawful authority. Source URL as at source 31.
34. ↩Forest and Range Practices Act s. 20.25 and the mandatory public-comment process that does not reach this decision. s. 20.25 lists the plans that must be made publicly available, and a road deactivation prescription is not among them. The one mandatory public review and comment process for forest operations is the forest operations map: s. 15.1(1) provides that the holder of a forest stewardship plan “may apply for a cutting permit or a road permit to construct a road only if the requirements under subsections (2) and (3) have been met”, and s. 15.1(2)(b) requires the holder to “make the forest operations map publicly available… for review and comment”. The Ministry’s own fact sheet states that plan holders “are required to publish a Forest Operations Map (FOM) of any proposed cutting and road permits starting on April 1, 2024” with “a 30-day public review and commenting period”. Three reasons it does not reach a forest service road deactivation, each sufficient alone: the trigger is road construction and there is no deactivation trigger in that Division; the duty binds forest stewardship plan holders and timber sales managers rather than a district manager; and it came into force on 1 April 2024, after the decision on this road. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/natural-resource-policy-legislation/legislation-regulation/frpa-pac/frpa-information/frpa_facts_-_forest_operations_map.pdf
35. ↩↩Land Act ss. 32, 33, 33.1, 93.1–93.3, 93.4 and 93.6, consolidation stating “This Act is current to September 22, 2026”. s. 32(2): “If the application complies with this Act and the regulations and has been accepted, the minister must publish the application on a publicly accessible website maintained by or on behalf of the minister.” s. 33(1): “If the minister considers it advisable in the public interest, the minister may require the applicant to publish a notice of the applicant’s application.” s. 33.1(1): “Before a disposition is made, a person may provide comments to the minister on the application for disposition”; (2) requires comments to be accepted for no less than 14 days after first publication where notice was required; (3): “Failure to provide an opportunity to comment in accordance with this section… does not render a disposition invalid.” Part 7.1 prints, under the heading “Not in force”: “93.1-93.3 [Not in force.]” s. 93.6(1): “Before making an order under section 93.4 establishing or significantly amending an objective, the minister must make the proposed objective or particulars of the proposed amendment publicly available for (a) review, and (b) comment.” Source URL as at source 22.
36. ↩↩↩HeliCat Canada Association — its own published pages, and the British Columbia corporate register. Register: HELICAT CANADA ASSOCIATION, society, registration S0041170, retrieved 27 September 2026. Self-description: “HeliCat Canada is the trade association of the Canadian helicopter and snowcat skiing industry.” History page: formed in 1978 as the BC Helicopter and Snowcat Skiing Operator’s Association, and “in October 2005, the name of the Association was changed to HeliCat Canada Association”. Unreconciled: the claimed 1978 founding against the registration date shown on the society record. Membership page, read directly 27 September 2026: “Businesses listed on this page are legal members of HeliCat Canada”, the list including “CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures”. Executive page, read directly the same day: Chief Executive Officer Ross Cloutier; President Beat Steiner; Vice-President Dave Morrison; Secretary / Treasurer Carl Trescher (CMH Heli-Skiing & Summer Adventures); and under “Helicat Contractor · Contractor - Industry Specialist”, Mike Sadan and Dave Butler. Sustainability page: “Sharing the landscape with others is our responsibility. We need to maintain relationships with stakeholders and communities to ensure welcome access to the landscape in which we operate”, and “Our use of Crown land to provide a dramatic product draws considerable engagement from stakeholders and the public.” Article “Sharing BC’s backcountry”, 6 June 2017: “HeliCat Canada entered into a Memorandum of Understanding in 2013 with the BC Snowmobile Federation and the Association of BC Snowmobile Clubs”. Verified negative, and the honest result of the search: we found no published position by HeliCat Canada asserting exclusivity against public recreational users, and none opposing snowmobiling or ski touring. The registered lobbying activity and the two consultant lobbyists retained belong to the association and not to the operator; the counts published elsewhere on this site are not re-derived here and no registry figure is stated in this piece. The domain helicatcanada.com redirects to helicat.org, which is the domain cited. https://www.helicat.org/executive
37. ↩The instruments that can lawfully restrict public motorised recreation, named for contrast. Motor Vehicle Prohibition Regulation, B.C. Reg. 18/2024, made under the Wildlife Act, RSBC 1996 c. 488, ss. 108 and 109; deposited 9 February 2024, effective 1 March 2024; s. 2 prohibits use or operation of a motor vehicle in an area described in Schedule 1 during the period specified for that area, and s. 6 prohibits snowmobiles in Schedule 5 areas during specified periods. It replaced B.C. Reg. 196/99, repealed effective 1 March 2024. The alternative is an order under Forest and Range Practices Act s. 58, made by a named official, carrying newspaper notice under the Forest Recreation Regulation and a posted notice in the area under s. 58(3). A commercial recreation licence of occupation is neither of these instruments. Recorded against us: we did not search the Province’s published recreation orders for an order affecting this specific terrain, which would settle whether any order restricts public motorised use there. https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/18_2024
38. ↩Public statements by CMH’s sustainability lead, quoted as reported. John Boivin, “Heli-skiing operation ‘very concerned’ by new caribou protection regs”, Trail Times, 13 January 2018, reporting a letter to Nakusp village council and a submission to the Province, and quoting Dave Butler, then Director of Sustainability for CMH: “I’m very concerned for tourism businesses like ours, I’m very concerned for other natural resource-based businesses (forestry, mining, etc), for public recreation and communities like Nakusp”. Andrew Findlay, “Bikepacking the Purcell Mountains”, Kootenay Mountain Culture, 27 September 2019, quoting him as CMH’s vice-president of sustainability: “I think the question should be whether or not mountain bikes should be permitted at all in the alpine, and if so, where and when?” Verified negative: searching multiple outlets and phrasings, we found no public statement by CMH about snowmobiling or unmanaged public recreation. His title differs between the two reports, and each is used as at its own date.
39. ↩↩Trout Lake Recreation Club riding-area extent map, and the club’s statement about it. Reproduced as . The image is captioned on its face “TROUT LAKE RECREATION CLUB · RIDING AREA”; it shows one black-outlined area of mountain terrain shaded green with a smaller wedge shaded orange inside its lower left, over shaded relief, with a north arrow. It is a frame from a documentary film about this terrain, at 7 min 44 s, and the club’s statement quoted in the body is made in the same film at 8 min 30 s. The colour key is the club’s own, given in that interview: “the green shows everywhere that we used to snowmobile, and the orange shows where we can snowmobile now.” The statement is: “We’re down to 95% of our riding area is gone.” What this exhibit is not. It is an extent map only. It carries no legend and no trail names, nothing on it can be read at the level of an individual route, and it is a film frame rather than a government layer. No measurement anywhere in this piece is taken from it. Every area, boundary and distance — the 7,321 km², the 116,704 hectares, the Central Selkirk closure and the position of the road against the tenure boundary — comes from the Province’s own layers at source 32 and from the plans’ own printed totals at source 09. What it does not say. The club’s key describes the green as where its members used to ride and the orange as where they ride now. It does not identify the green area as any operator’s tenure, and this piece does not treat it as one. The 95 per cent is the club’s own characterisation of its own riding area, attributed to the club in the body, and it is not a figure we have derived or checked. A hand-annotated version of this same map is reported to exist on the club’s social media, captioned “CMH – Galena GREEN AREA” with a legend reading “CMH Galena Tenure”; we have not obtained or read that version, and nothing in this piece relies on it.
40. ↩Stewardship Management Agreement regarding management of snowmobiling in mountain caribou habitat in the Central Selkirk area. Header and parties page, reproduced as . The title reads in full: “STEWARDSHIP MANAGEMENT AGREEMENT REGARDING MANAGEMENT OF SNOWMOBILING IN MOUNTAIN CARIBOU HABITAT IN THE CENTRAL SELKIRK AREA”. The parties are given as “The Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development (FLNRORD), Kootenay Region” and “Arrow Lakes Ridge Riders Snowmobile Club (ALRRSC). Trout Lake Recreational Club (TLRC), (Collectively referred to as the ‘Parties’)”. The word “Signed” is written by hand at the top right of the page, beside the page number 1. The page reproduced is the header only; the date of signature is not printed on it. February 2021 is the date carried for it in our own record and at saverady.com §04, and it is used in that form in this piece.
41. ↩↩↩↩Office of the Registrar of Lobbying of British Columbia — the three HeliCat Canada Association registrations, retrieved and counted by us on 27 September 2026. Each figure below is the number printed on that registration’s own page under “Total number of Lobbying Activity Reports”. 1207-1683 — organisation (in-house) registration, HeliCat Canada Association, senior officer Ross Cloutier, Chief Executive Officer; initial registration start date 2014-11-28; status Active; total 100, with 11 in the last six months. Stated subject matter includes “BC Parks, Wildlife and related policies and programs as they relate to helicopter and snowcat skiing in BC.” 1251-6130 — consultant lobbyist Greg D’Avignon, CSG Canadian Strategy Group LP, client HeliCat Canada Association; initial registration start date 2025-07-14; status Active; total 9, with 4 in the last six months. Source for the two answers quoted in the body, both “Yes”. 11059-6174 — consultant lobbyist Berit Beattie, CSG Canadian Strategy Group LP; initial registration start date 2025-09-03; status Active; total 6, with 1 in the last six months. The three totals are 100 + 9 + 6 = 115. The registry’s client-summary search is a different and narrower view, headed “Search Results for the Last 12 Months”, and gives 29, 6 and 4, which is 39; the two views must not be conflated. A correction we are making to our own earlier work. The figure of 162 activity reports published at saverady.com §06 is not reproducible from the registry and is not used in this piece. Counting the three registrations above on the date given yields 115. Related: the strings 1683-4990 and 1683-7662, cited elsewhere as registrations, are activity-report numbers under client 1683, not registration numbers. All of this belongs to the association. None of it belongs to CMH, and none of it is attributed to the operator anywhere in this piece. https://www.lobbyistsregistrar.bc.ca/app/secure/orl/lrs/do/vwRg?cno=1683&regId=56557652
42. ↩The Province’s anti-tariff instruments, and what each one operates on. Liquor Distribution Branch directive to stop buying American liquor, and the direction to government and Crown corporations to buy Canadian goods and services first — release 2025PREM0014-000077, 1 February 2025; extended on 4 March 2025 to health authorities and to “buying Canadian first, then non-U.S. products” — release 2025PREM0026-000166. Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act, SBC 2025 c. 11, assented 29 May 2025, BC Laws consolidation current to 22 September 2026: Part 1 reads “[Not in force. Repealed 2025-11-22.]”, Part 3 reads “Repealed”, and the surviving operative power is s. 7(1) — the Lieutenant Governor in Council “may issue directives in relation to the procurement of goods or services by the government or government procurement entities.” Forest trade office in London — 2025FOR0046-001059, 27 October 2025. Forestry trade mission to Japan and South Korea — 2025FOR0050-001089, 6 November 2025. $90 million support package — 2026PREM0034-001088, 18 September 2026. Each instrument named here operates on goods, services, procurement, markets or money. None of them touches land, tenure or ownership, and that is the finding, not an omission in our summary. https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/25011
43. ↩↩Ministry release New supports for businesses, communities affected by U.S. tariffs, release 2026PREM0034-001088, 18 September 2026, 11:50 AM. Hon. Ravi Parmar, Minister of Forests: “Donald Trump took aim at our forestry workers when he announced his slate of tariffs… Now, my highest priority is to stand up and fight back against this economic attack to ensure our workers are never targeted like this again… This is how we win against the United States.” Premier David Eby, same release: “President Trump’s unfair trade war is an attack on B.C. workers, businesses and communities – especially in our forest sector… But we won’t let decisions made in Washington determine our future.” The Premier’s sovereignty lines quoted in the portrait caption are releases 2025PREM0014-000077 (1 February 2025, 4:37 PM) and 2025PREM0026-000166 (4 March 2025, 12:10 PM). Recorded so it is not mistaken for a government source: the widely repeated “hell no to Trump” and “51st state” lines are journalism, not government releases — the first is Associated Press, 22 September 2026 — and none of them is used in this piece. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026PREM0034-001088
44. ↩Look West Update: Billions of dollars of investment, tens of thousands of new jobs, release 2026PREM0020-000479, 29 April 2026, 12:47 PM. Source for “The strategy sets a 10-year vision to strengthen B.C.’s economy, including continuing work to speed up permitting and diversify key sectors, so B.C.’s economy is less reliant on the United States”, and, in the same release’s facts section, for the Adventure Tourism Hub passage quoted in full in Section 03. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026PREM0020-000479
45. ↩↩Supporting adventure tourism in B.C. with new permitting hub, release 2026WLRS0020-000388, 9 April 2026, 11:30 AM, Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship — the ministry that administers commercial recreation tenures. Source for the hub “making it easier for businesses to seek land-tenure approval for popular tourism activities… heliskiing, cat skiing, heli-assisted guiding activities, commercial snowmobiling and snowmobile-assisted activities”; for the quotation from Randene Neill, Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship; for applications moving from regional handling to “a dedicated group” through FrontCounter BC; for it being “a pilot project at this time with an initial focus on heli-skiing/guiding, cat skiing and guided snowmobiling activities”; for Budget 2026 providing $7.5 million to that ministry for permitting; and for the HeliCat Canada quotation reproduced in Section 03. Verified negative: neither this release nor 2026PREM0020-000479 mentions nationality, residency, ownership or control of an applicant. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026WLRS0020-000388
46. ↩Forest Act, RSBC 1996 c. 157, ss. 54, 54.02 and Division 2.1 (ss. 54.62–54.69), BC Laws consolidation current to 22 September 2026. s. 54.02(1): “In considering whether to approve a disposition under section 54 (2) (a), the minister must consider the effect of the disposition on (a) the marketing of fibre in British Columbia, and (b) the public interest.” s. 54.02(3)(a): where the minister considers it would not be in the public interest for the intended recipient to hold the rights, the minister “must not approve the disposition”. Division 2.1 is headed “Corporate Changes of Control and Amalgamations”: s. 54.63 requires written notice to the minister within 30 days of a change of control; s. 54.64(1) requires the minister to review it and consider its effects on fibre marketing and the public interest; s. 54.62(1) reaches a change of control of “a holding corporation, whose subsidiary is the corporation”; s. 54.66(1) permits immediate suspension of rights and, after a hearing, an order to dispose of the agreement “to a person who is at arm’s length from the corporation”. https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96157_04
47. ↩↩Land Act, RSBC 1996 c. 245, s. 99, and the absence of any ownership test, consolidation current to 22 September 2026. s. 99(2): “A person may not dispose of or deal with an interest in Crown land held under a disposition, other than a Crown grant, unless (a) the disposition under which the interest is held expressly allows it, or (b) the minister approves in writing the disposition or dealing.” s. 99(3): a purported disposition in contravention “is void”. Consent is therefore required, and this piece does not say otherwise. The asymmetry is that the section attaches no statutory test to that consent — no mandatory consideration, no power to compel information, no mandatory refusal — where the Forest Act equivalent at source 46 attaches all three. Term counts run against the full consolidated Act: “change of control” 0, “shareholder” 0, “foreign” 0, “nationality” 0. The word “Canadian” occurs once in the whole Act, at s. 9, which bars a person who is not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident from taking a Crown grant. A commercial recreation tenure is never a Crown grant: it is a licence of occupation or a lease, as the Adventure Tourism policy’s own section headings state (§§ 6.1.1, 6.1.2, 6.4.1). The Act’s only citizenship provision therefore cannot reach these tenures by its own terms. Recorded so it is not miscited: the Act’s single occurrence of “non-Canadian” is in the aquatic-upland provisions and widens access rather than restricting it; it is not a nationality restriction and is not relied on here. Not established, and deliberately not asserted: whether a pure share sale, in which the tenure holder remains the same legal person and no interest in Crown land moves, engages s. 99(2) at all. There is no case law and no published ministry interpretation on the point, and this piece makes no claim about it. Source URL as at source 22.
48. ↩↩Eligibility: General Policy: Eligibility and Restrictions, file 11100-00, amended 3 June 2024, § 2.2; Adventure Tourism (Commercial Recreation) Policy § 5; and Business Corporations Act, SBC 2002 c. 57, ss. 124(2), 375(1) and 376(3). General Policy § 2.2, the governing instrument: “Applicants for new Land Act tenures, tenure assignment, or tenure replacement must be: • Canadian citizens or permanent residents 19 years of age or older; or, • corporations which are incorporated or registered in British Columbia.” The Adventure Tourism policy repeats it, and so does the All-Seasons Resort policy. Adventure Tourism § 5: “Applicants must be: • Canadian citizens or permanent residents 19 years of age or older; or • Corporations which are incorporated or registered in British Columbia…” — a citizenship test for individuals and, for a corporation, incorporation or registration only. BCA s. 375(1): “A foreign entity must register as an extraprovincial company in accordance with this Act within 2 months after the foreign entity begins to carry on business in British Columbia.” s. 376(3) lists what the registration statement must contain — name, jurisdiction, dates, identifying number, head office address, attorney for service — and nothing about shareholders, ownership or nationality. s. 124(2) lists every disqualification for a director, being age, incapacity, undischarged bankruptcy and specified convictions, and imposes no citizenship or residency requirement, unlike the federal Canada Business Corporations Act s. 105(3). Policy § 8.4 requires the prior written consent of the authorizing agency to an assignment and that “the assignee must meet eligibility requirements”. Term counts across the statute and the four Crown-land policies checked: “foreign” 0, “nationality” 0, “change of control” 0, “shareholder” 0, “beneficial” 0. The citizenship test exists and applies to individuals only; there is no look-through to corporate ownership anywhere in either the Act or the policies. Policy URL as at source 23.
49. ↩Ministry of Forests, Public meetings set for Crown land tenure transfer, 1999, historic government archive. On the proposed transfer of Evans Forest Products Ltd. Crown tenures to Louisiana-Pacific Canada Engineered Wood Products Ltd. — “two replaceable forest licences, a tree farm licence (TFL 55) and seven timber licences having a combined allowable annual cut of about 611,000 cubic metres”, in the Nelson and Kamloops forest regions. Forests Minister David Zirnhelt, quoted in Section 03. Public meetings were held in Sicamous on 12 October, Revelstoke on 13 October and Golden on 14 October, 7 to 10 p.m., taking written or oral submissions. Three limits, carried in the body: these were timber tenures under the Forest Act, not commercial recreation tenures under the Land Act; the release does not say the review was called because the buyer was American, the minister’s stated concern being “the communities and workers in the Interior”; and the archived page carries no publication date in its markup, so it is cited as 1999 without a day. The archive page carries the standard notice that historic releases “do not necessarily reflect the policies and priorities of the government of the day”. https://archive.news.gov.bc.ca/releases/archive/pre2001/1999/1999nr/1999109.asp
50. ↩↩The Province’s own spatial layers, queried and measured by us on 27 September 2026 — the source for both maps on this page and for the three-number comparison. Tenures: WHSE_TANTALIS.TA_CROWN_TENURES_SVW, filtered CROWN_LANDS_FILE IN ('4400690','4401957','4401094','4496099','4496100','4492084'), being the six file numbers printed on the six management plans released in FOR-2023-31283, taking only records at stage TENURE with status disposition in good standing and purpose commercial recreation / heli ski. Measured in EPSG:3005: Monashees 1,487.55 km²; Revelstoke 1,309.85; Gothics 1,249.33; Galena 1,167.05; Adamants 1,079.59; Bobbie Burns 1,007.70. Total as mapped, 7,301.08 km², against 7,321.08 km² summed from the plans’ own printed zone tables at source 09 and 7,349 km² published at saverady.com §06. The difference of 20.00 km² is between sources and is not reconciled here. It sits almost entirely in Bobbie Burns (1,052.63 printed against 1,007.70 mapped) and Adamants (1,050.40 against 1,079.59); the other four agree within 4 km². Stage APPLICATION: the same query returns, for each of the six files, a separate polygon at stage APPLICATION expiring 2044 — the forty-five-year replacement. For Galena it measures 113,891.45 ha, about 2,813 ha smaller than the tenure in force. Those polygons are neither drawn on the maps nor counted in any figure in this piece. Roads: WHSE_FOREST_TENURE.FTEN_ROAD_SECTION_LINES_SVW. Snowmobile closure: WHSE_WILDLIFE_INVENTORY.AMA_SNOWMOBILE_MGMT_AREAS_SP, polygon id 195. Province outline on the left panel of the second map: WHSE_LEGAL_ADMIN_BOUNDARIES.ABMS_PROVINCE_SP, generalised for drawing only, with no figure taken from it. Projection check: areas in EPSG:3005 carry no projection distortion; the two distances were carried back to the GRS80 ellipsoid and come out at 723.9 m and 463.9 m, 0.06 and 0.02 per cent from the grid figures, so both round to the same metre either way. Scale bars on both maps are exact in EPSG:3005; grid north is up, and true north at Silvercup Ridge is 7.0° west of grid north. https://openmaps.gov.bc.ca/geo/pub/wfs
51. ↩BC NDP campaign releases, bcndp.ca, retrieved 27 September 2026. Party material, not government material: each carries the statutory authorization line “Authorized by BC NDP Financial Agent, Karen Cooling”, which is what marks it as party-funded. David Eby launches election with plan to build B.C. strong amid Trump’s attacks, 22 September 2026 — “For B.C. and for Canada, this is an existential moment. Trump is threatening our jobs and driving up costs. British Columbians deserve a say in how B.C. responds,” and “Do we strengthen our province, build homes, protect jobs and make ourselves less dependent on the U.S.? Or do we cozy up to Trump, make cuts, raise costs and Americanize our health care?” The three planks are quoted from the same page; the third reads “Build an economy free from the US, work with the Prime Minister to open new markets…” and the first commits to “keep U.S. alcohol off the shelves until we get a fair deal for forest workers.” Eby pledges new “Built in B.C. and Canada” buying rules, 24 September 2026 — “With Donald Trump attacking our workers and businesses, we must become our own best customer…”; the mechanism applies to “ministries, Crown agencies and health authorities”, sets “minimum requirements for B.C. and Canadian-made materials… including wood, steel, aluminum and cement”, applies “penalties to U.S.-made goods and materials”, and directs BC Hydro to build 70% of Phase 1 and 100% of Phase 2 North Coast Transmission Line towers with Canadian steel. That release is also the source for the party’s own phrase “while Trump was pushing his 51st state agenda”, written of the Opposition’s position on the liquor ban. Election mechanics, Elections BC: writ day 22 September 2026, final voting day Saturday 24 October 2026, 93 electoral districts. Verified negative: there is no published BC NDP platform document as at 27 September 2026 — /platform, /plan, /our-plan and /commitments all redirect to the homepage, and the launch release states the party “will roll out details of the plan to respond to the trade war over the campaign.” So the party’s silence on land ownership is the silence of a campaign that has not published a platform, which is a narrower fact than a platform that omits it. https://www.bcndp.ca/releases/david-eby-launches-election-plan-build-bc-strong-amid-trumps-attacks https://www.bcndp.ca/releases/eby-pledges-new-built-bc-and-canada-buying-rules
52. ↩↩The Section 01 ledger — every government release quoted in it, fetched and read on 27 September 2026. Each release page was retrieved with curl and the quoted words located in the page text; the date given for each is the date printed on that release’s own page. 2025PREM0014-000077, 1 February 2025, Premier announces immediate response, vows to defend B.C. against Trump tariffs — “We won’t back down or be bullied into becoming another state”, and “a declaration of economic war against a trusted ally”. 2025PREM0026-000166, 4 March 2025, Premier’s statement on tariffs imposed by the U.S. — “This threat to our sovereignty has brought out a sense of pride…” and “At the grocery store, buy B.C., buy Canadian. If you have a choice about where to travel, avoid the United States.” 2025PREM0011-000174, 6 March 2025 — “The White House started a trade war we didn’t want, and we must answer with strength.” 2025PREM0032-000187, 10 March 2025, Premier’s statement on removing all U.S. alcohol from BCLIQUOR stores — the statement quoted in full in the block quote: “President Trump wants to hurt Canada economically so he can annex Canada politically… Trump wants to force us into becoming the 51st state. That will never happen. We are proud Canadians. We will always be the true north, strong and free. Elbows up!”, and, earlier in the same statement, “I encourage those who enjoy Napa Valley wines to enjoy the many award winners from the Okanagan Valley.” 2025AG0012-000204, 13 March 2025 — “In the face of escalating attacks on our sovereignty that have included threatening to erase the Canada-U.S. border and taking our water, we are not backing down.” 2026PREM0034-001088, 18 September 2026 — Parmar’s “This is how we win against the United States” and Eby’s “we won’t let decisions made in Washington determine our future”; the package is $90 million, of which $15 million extends the BuyBC label beyond agriculture. Provenance of the 51st-state line, recorded so it is not overstated. “Never the 51st state” is not a BC NDP slogan — it appears in no party logo, advertisement or merchandise, and a search of the party’s own written material returns nothing. It exists in three forms, all quoted here as what they are: the Premier’s own words in government release 2025PREM0032-000187 above; the wording of the border welcome signs he unveiled on 8 September 2026 (source 53); and the party’s phrase “his 51st state agenda” at source 51. The separately circulated “hell no to Trump” line is Associated Press reporting of spoken words at the election call, 22 September 2026, and not a government or party document; it could not be checked against a primary source, so it is not used anywhere on this page. Bill 7 — 2025. Part 4 as introduced would have let the Lieutenant Governor in Council “authorize issuers of licences, permits or other authorizations… to modify, add or remove limits or conditions, or the term” for the purpose of “addressing challenges… arising from the actions of a foreign jurisdiction” — the closest any British Columbia instrument has come to reaching a tenure in the name of resisting the United States. It is absent from the Act as passed, and s. 20(2)(a) of the bill had in any case carved out authorizations for “a project relating to a natural resource”. Not established: that land or tenure was ever argued in the withdrawal, which was driven by a legislative-oversight objection. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2025PREM0032-000187 https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/bills/billsprevious/1st43rd:gov07-1
53. ↩↩The three items in the Section 01 ledger that are journalism, named as such — CBC News, all three fetched in full and dated from each page’s own datePublished field on 27 September 2026. These are not government releases and are not treated as primary sources for anything but the reporter’s account. 1. Border signs — published 8 September 2026. Canada ‘will NEVER be the 51st state. Sorry!’: B.C. premier unveils new border welcome signs. The Premier unveiled official welcome signage for the crossings with Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska on the day Canada’s counter-tariffs took effect; he is quoted, “While our kindness is one of our biggest strengths, you should never mistake it for weakness.” 2. The cancel-contracts directive — published 10 April 2025. The Premier ordered ministries, health authorities and Crown corporations to review all contracts with the goal of eliminating non-essential purchases of American goods or contracts with American companies, “where viable”; to pause participation in U.S. industry associations; to cancel subscriptions to American publications and non-essential software; and to avoid non-essential travel to the United States. “We’ve gotta be prepared to stand on our own two feet,” he told reporters. The same report records that Starlink had already been ruled out as a possible rural internet provider. 3. LifeLabs and Quest Diagnostics — published 16 April 2025. B.C. Health Coalition urges province to end contract with U.S. owner of LifeLabs. Quest Diagnostics, a United States company, acquired LifeLabs, the province’s main provider of outpatient laboratory services, for $1.35 billion; the contract runs through March 2031. The Ministry of Health is quoted declining: “Cancelling the province’s contract with LifeLabs right now would cause significant delays in basic lab testing and put patients at risk… It would also cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take resources away from frontline services elsewhere.” This is the only instance in anything retrieved for this page of the Province being asked to apply its anti-American-contract directive to an American acquisition of a British Columbian asset, and it is the evidential basis for the headline’s word “takeovers”. Two limits belong on it: the asset is a service contract rather than land, and the stated reason for declining was patient risk and cost, not a position on foreign ownership. Not established: any statement by the Premier personally on the LifeLabs acquisition. Excluded, deliberately. A sentence circulating in search results and attributed to the Premier — that billions in spending are being withheld from American firms — does not appear in the report it is attributed to, and a phrase search returns no primary source. It is treated as unverified and appears nowhere on this page. The underlying policy is documented at item 2 above. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/david-eby-counter-tariffs-9.7336195 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/eby-cancel-government-contracts-united-states-1.7507348 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-health-coalition-urges-province-to-end-contract-with-u-s-owner-of-lifelabs-1.7512442
54. ↩Stakeholder notification and its forwarding chain — correspondence provided to Backcountry Coalition, 27 September 2026. The originating message is “Stakeholder Notification of Permanent Deactivation of Rady Forest Service Road, Trout Lake Area”, sent 28 April 2021 at 11:11 AM by Tina Zimmermann, RFT, Engineering Technician, Selkirk Resource District, FLNRORD, to five addresses outside government. It carries the line “Every effort will be made to maintain ATV access on the Rady Forest Service Road section” and attaches the overview map, the deactivation prescription for FSR 0321.02 and a KML of the road. It was forwarded on 30 April 2021 by Kim Smith, General Manager, Quad Riders ATV Association of British Columbia, to the Trout Lake Recreational Club, with the note that the club had not been copied. Limit: this is private correspondence, not a public release. We reproduce only the sender’s role, the date and the quoted line; no private address is published, and the individuals who forwarded it are not named beyond those acting in an official capacity for an association or the ministry.