January 6 meeting will test province and feds’ willingness to put Jasper first

Christmas was hard this year for Jasperites. 

Besides losing the homes that they built their lives in, the loss of personal belongings—from irreplaceable Christmas decorations to seasonal sports equipment—has come sharply into focus for lots of folks in town. Many residents are struggling to hang in there.

Christmas presents (and insurance) can replace things, but it’s not so much that Jasperites need gifts, it’s that we need support.

So with the holidays officially behind us, we should remember that the wildfire support the provincial government has pledged the Municipality of Jasper is not a gift from Premier Danielle Smith. Nor should Jason Nixon’s or Rick McIver’s contributions be thought of as charitable acts from their respective ministries. 

Provincial support for Jasper’s interim housing needs is a duty. Furthermore, it’s something residents who lost their homes are entitled to—no strings attached.

The provincial government has said they have $112 million to build interim housing in wildfire-ravaged Jasper. When that support was announced in October, Jasper’s mayor called it a “veritable lifeline for residents who’ve faced tremendous challenges.” 

But the devil is in the details: the province wants 42-year leases on the serviced interim housing sites, and is now demanding Parks Canada hand over unserviced land that is currently outside of the Jasper town boundary. 

Because local officials didn’t immediately cede that authority, Premier Smith has called Parks Canada “a real problem.” Minister Nixon has essentially said the same.

The actual problem, of course, is that people who lost their homes in the 2024 Wildfire need housing solutions while the town is rebuilt.

It’s nice to imagine that Jasper’s immediate interim housing need and our long-term housing shortage could be solved in one fell swoop. But, before Parks Canada even considers acquiescing to Alberta’s demands to hand over the entirety of Jasper’s future development potential, there are a number of questions demanding answers: 

• What would the timeline be for changing the town boundary, servicing the land and installing housing? If this can’t all be accomplished within the next six to nine months, is it even relevant to the question of ’interim housing’? 

• How would Premier Smith’s plan for a subdivision of single detached homes align with Jasper’s existing plans to increase affordable housing and address the longstanding lack of appropriate accommodations for front line, seasonal and year-round employees in the tourism sector? Would handing over all that land leave Jasper any room to manoeuvre in addressing future housing challenges?

• What costs and liabilities would the municipality of Jasper be taking on with a whole new subdivision of single detached homes? How many costs would be added to operations and infrastructure budgets? Would Jasper taxpayers be on the hook for all those new costs? 

Let’s be clear: the type of housing Jasper needs into its future is high density: apartments and townhouses and row homes; multi-family units, in other words.

Local planners know this, and have been politely (in public, anyway) pushing back on the province’s “solution” of rushing in to plunk down a limited number of single-family, two-bedroom units which will only house a small fraction of those whose homes were destroyed, and which won’t serve our needs into the future.

Yet Premier Smith wants Parks Canada to respond to her request by January 6, when the Jasper-Alberta-Canada Intergovernmental Redevelopment Committee (JIRC) next meets.

Here’s what the Premier should take away from that meeting: Jasper has enough land to meet our housing needs. But. We need the right kind of housing to go on it. Talking about new subdivisions and expanding the town boundary is taking our eye off the ball of interim housing. And it is not a solution to the pressing problems that we are currently facing.

2024 was painful enough. We need some good news in 2025. 

When it comes to the community’s rebuild, that will require Premier Smith and Parks Canada to put differences aside, come together for the good of Jasper, and invest in locally-led solutions.

Surely that’s not too much to ask.

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com