Kootenay East Liberal MLA Bill Bennett has applauded the eight RDEk directors who voted in favour of requesting the province and Glacier Resorts Ltd. sign a Master Development Agreement, which would turn the Jumbo Glacier Resort into a Mountain Resort municipality.

“Good on the eight directors who had the courage to do the right thing, in the face of organized intimidation and bullying by Wildsight and the NDP,” said Bennett.

“They are protecting their tax payers, making a sensible decision. Why should the tax payers of Kimberley, Cranbrook and the Elk Valley pay for a huge zoning change process at the RDEK level, when the province can handle the project in a way where the proponent will pay the costs of planning the resort?”

Bennett also responded to the idea that the Jumbo decision should be dealt with by local officials, not by the province.

“The claim that the decision should be local is dishonest and hypocritical. Local government has had its say many times over the years, when you look at the resolutions they have had on the books,” said Bennett.

“In the CORE process, our land use planning exercise that happened between 1990 and 1992, Jumbo Valley was designated for resort development if the project could obtain an environmental certificate from the province. The RDEK sat on the CORE table and supported the final report. Is this not local involvement?”

“After 10 years, the project did receive an environmental certificate in 2004,” continued Bennett, “when the environmental certificate, with 200 conditions placed on it by the province on how the resort must be built, was issued in 2004, the RDEK had a 10-year-old resolution on its books stating they wanted the province to proceed if an environmental certificate was awarded.

It was only after the certificate was awarded that the RDEK changed its 10- year-old resolution and started to say it wanted to have the final say.”

The $45-million Jumbo development is approximately 55 kilometres west of Invermere at the foot of Jumbo Mountain and developers spent over 10 years seeking approval for the project from successive provincial governments before the master plan was approved by the Liberal government in 2007. Ever since, developers have been waiting for local zoning approval in order to move the project forward.

Bennett weighed in on the lengthy process of the project.

“The project has been studied, poked, prodded and analyzed for 20 years by three different political parties. Every government of B.C. has been in favour of building this project, according to their public statements - that includes the NDP governments of the 1990’s. The proponent has done everything its been asked to do by successive governments, answered every question, agreed to mitigate every concern and patiently and expensively earned its way through a myriad of government processes. The public has had more opportunity to be heard on this project than any other major project in B.C. history. The claim more consultation is needed is an attempt by opponents to keep delaying the project until the proponent gives up.”