Jasper鈥檚 getting a $65.9 million walking and biking trail, but no one seems to know where the trail鈥檚 heading or why it鈥檒l cost four times our annual municipal budget to develop.
The federal budget was announced last week and included the news of a pricey new trail in Jasper National Park, but despite our best efforts, no one can tell us anything about it.
First, Parks Canada directed our questions to the Department of Finance, then the Department of Finance directed our questions back to Parks Canada and then finally Parks Canada responded.
However, its 225-word response said absolutely nothing we didn鈥檛 already know鈥攚hich, to be fair, already isn鈥檛 much at all.
In its statement, sent from the agency鈥檚 national office, Parks Canada didn鈥檛 even mention the trail until its third paragraph and ultimately this is what we learned: 鈥淭he Government of Canada has proposed under the 2016 Budget to provide $65.9 million for a new biking and walking trail in Jasper National Park in Alberta. This is part of a larger proposed investment of up to $191 million over two years to Parks Canada to improve tourism and highway assets.鈥�
That鈥檚 all she wrote.
At this point, we have to question whether anyone in the Jasper Field Unit鈥攐r within the agency鈥攅ven knows what this money is for. There has been plenty of speculation since the news broke last week鈥攖he most pervasive rumour is a paved trail will be developed from Jasper to Lake Louise along the Icefields Parkway鈥攂ut there has been no official comment or statement to either confirm or deny the rumours.
The government鈥攁nd Parks Canada鈥攎ust have known a $65.9 million price tag would attract attention and that the media and the public would have some questions as to where that money is going.
It seems odd that no one would be prepared to field those questions, especially a week after the announcement. There鈥檚 been plenty of time to work on talking points.
At the bare minimum, they could at least tell us where the trail is going.
In the meantime, we鈥檒l continue to speculate.
