Funding for B.C.'s parks and outdoor recreation shouldn't be considered discretionary spending

Image: Destination BC and Karl Medig.

As it prepares its next budget, the provincial government faces a familiar challenge: how to make difficult choices today without creating bigger problems tomorrow. In times like these, it’s worth remembering the old fable of the ant and the grasshopper.

The ant spends its summer maintaining its nest and stockpiling food, while the grasshopper lives for the day, soaks in the sun and plays music. When winter arrives, the ant is ready, and the grasshopper starves. The lesson isn’t about blame, but about foresight: short-term savings can lead to long-term costs and missed opportunities.

That lesson is especially relevant as the provincial government considers cuts to parks and outdoor recreation infrastructure at a time when demand for these services is at an all-time high. More people than ever are paddling, sledding, hiking, biking and camping, and the impacts of inflation and climate-driven floods and fires are driving up maintenance costs. 

Outdoor recreation and parks are often treated as discretionary spending: easier to trim than health care, education or support for struggling resource communities. Given a growing provincial deficit and economic uncertainty, those pressures are real. But reducing investment in outdoor recreation risks saving dollars this year only to incur much higher costs down the road.

Like the grasshopper ignoring the future, this approach risks being short-sighted. Take a recent announcement that Recreation Sites and Trails BC is abandoning a 67-kilometre section of the Kettle Valley Railway (KVR), a rail line turned multi-use trail in the southern interior. The announcement cited flood damage and climbing maintenance costs. What this decision ignores is the economic potential of an intact rail trail, especially as interest in cycle tourism grows.

A study of a rail trail in New Zealand found that every dollar invested in maintenance generated $3.50 in local revenue. In B.C., increasing traffic on other sections of the KVR has added months to the tourist season. And they’re good tourists to have. Cyclists tend to spend more money than visitors in cars because they move more slowly and stop more. 

What makes this example even more concerning is that the same government abandoning rail trails near Princeton is encouraging new tourism businesses on a rail trail in the North Okanagan. It’s like throwing food out with one hand while grabbing it with the other.

These kinds of decisions don’t just reduce current services; they represent missed opportunities. When infrastructure is allowed to deteriorate or disappear, rural communities lose the chance to build new businesses, extend tourism seasons, and attract investment that could have offset public costs in the first place.

The government’s own research, published last fall, showed that the outdoor recreation sector contributed $4.8 billion to B.C.’s economy in 2023. That’s 1.5 per cent of provincial GDP, and that includes only spending by residents of B.C. and Alberta, not visitors from other provinces or from the U.S. and abroad; it also doesn't include the significant contribution of gear manufacturing.

The same provincial research found that outdoor recreation jobs paid British Columbians more than $3.2 billion in wages and salaries annually. Often these jobs are in rural communities, many of which are working to diversify their economies beyond single industries, particularly the struggling forestry sector. 

These towns like outdoor recreation because it improves community wellbeing and economic diversification. Access to trails and nature is increasingly important for recruiting and retaining professionals, like doctors and teachers, who make these places livable for everyone else. More than half of British Columbians chose where they live to be close to outdoor recreation. Research also shows that proximity to green space increases feelings of belonging and improves physical and mental health. A study from England found every dollar spent on recreation saved the health care system $17 in avoided costs. 

But instead of investing in these emerging economic anchors and natural assets, funding is being reduced even as maintenance backlogs grow. Managers at many BC Parks and Recreation Sites and Trails BC are already deferring regular maintenance and scrambling to secure funding to rebuild critical infrastructure damaged by increasingly frequent fires and floods. The province says it has already spent $27 million fixing storm damage in BC Parks. 

For instance, it cost the province $5 million to reroute the world-famous Berg Lake Trail in Mount Robson Provincial Park after it was damaged by flooding in 2021. It reopened in 2025 to the relief of local tourism businesses. But the cost also highlighted concerns about the state of B.C.’s other 1,032 provincial parks. 

Increasingly the burden to keep up with more demand and damage is falling on non-profit, volunteer-run outdoor clubs. But these passionate folks can only do so much. 

Instead of cutting money for parks and outdoor recreation, the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC is calling on the provincial government to use this budget as an opportunity to create sustainable funding for the core services provided by outdoor recreation. Improving access to parks, trails and green spaces will help the whole province become more resilient and successful, just like an ant storing food for winter.