Will province's insistence on 'consensus' doom a Chilliwack-area First Nation's tourism project?

Decisions can be hard.

Years after it was first proposed, an idea to build a new ski resort near Chilliwack continues to generate more government paperwork than tourists. So too does a separate plan for a gondola in the same area.

The proposals are competing concepts for how the mountainous Crown land above Bridal Falls might be used in the century to come. They can’t both be built, so the provincial government can’t support both. But choosing is challenge number two. Challenge number one is deciding how to make a decision—and figuring out what “consensus” among First Nations really entails.

Two different projects

The two proposed projects are extremely different in terms of scale, size, and purpose.

The Cascade Skyline Gondola would connect a set of buildings on the valley floor, at the junction of Highway 1 and Highway 9, with a restaurant and lodge on the mountain high above. Visitors could either enjoy the valleyview from there, or use the facility as a base for recreational adventures in the surrounding high mountains and valleys surrounding Chipmunk Creek.

The proposed Bridal Veil Mountain Resort would entail a much more intensive use of the land. Although its proponents say the first phase would also involve a sight-seeing gondola, the eventual goal would be to create a full four-season mountain resort, with skiing and snowboarding in the winter and mountain biking and hiking when the weather is warmer. It envisions the creation of two distinct “village” areas, one in the Chipmunk Creek alpine area, another located immediately east of the Chilliwack Community Forest (and potentially utilizing the same road).

Normally, the process to approve (or reject) tourist-related use of Crown land is relatively simple. Now, it’s not actually simple by any means, as any normal person would understand the definition. But the process is at least relatively well defined.

There is still a mountain of paperwork, public consultations, plans and fine-tuning. The projects have to explain how their dream would impact local transportation networks, environmental assets, and community infrastructure. But at the end of the day, the decision usually comes down to the government weighing the pros and cons, checking with stakeholders—including any Indigenous communities—and saying “yes” or “no.” It is about checking boxes, and getting to the point of declaring a project to be good or not-so-good.

When a group applied to build the Sea-to-Sky Gondola near Squamish, the approval process took less than two years. Ski resorts can take much, much longer but the process still involves moving through a checklist of tasks.

The Bridal Falls mountains’ decision is different because the yes/no paradigm just doesn’t work. The proponents both need to complete a to-do list and they need to show that their idea is more worthy than the proposed alternative .

The province cannot say “yes” to both plans because they conflict with one another and propose the usage of the same terrain.

The ski resort is a ski resort. It requires two villages, vehicular access, an array of buildings and chairlifts and a large amount of tourism infrastructure. Some people would access the resort through gondolas.

The Cascade Skyline gondola-only proposal, meanwhile, envisions its mountaintop facility as an entryway into a larger recreational area that doesn’t that doesn’t include all that resort stuff.

So the province has to pick. But it remains unclear how it plans to do so, and just how it can fulfill its promise of approving a project with “consensus” support among Fraser Valley First nations.

A new ‘competitive process’

This fall, the proponents of both projects were told by the province that they had been placed in a “competitive bid” process. The province will compare the two projects against one another, selecting the one they feel is best.

The group behind the mountain resort proposal said they welcomed the news, saying a new side-by-side competitive process “is welcomed by BVMR and is seen as the next step towards Bridal Veil Mountain Resort becoming the Province’s next great all-season destination resort.”

But the gondola backers are less enthusiastic, telling The Current that the process has already taken too long, and that the province has already completed a comparison of the two projects. Local government officials are also getting tired of being asked to do work they feel has already been done.

Two years ago, the province notified both proponents saying they would be asking local governments and First Nations for their thoughts on both projects in a “like-to-like manner.” The goal was to allow local officials and First Nations to easily compare the two proposals beside one another and deliver their verdict about which elements they like better. The ministry told the two groups that the referral process would take only six to eight weeks to conclude and that when it was done, the ministry said it would be able to figure out what to do next “to move toward a decision on the best suited proposal.”

The two parties submitted a variety of requested documents and information. Jayson Faulkner, a member of the group pushing the gondola project, said the assumption was that the province was gathering information to make a subsequent decision.

But then this September, after waiting two years, they heard that they were in a brand new competitive bid process.

Faulkner said the province has told them that the situation is unique and that its officials have been trying to figure out how to proceed and make a decision. But that doesn’t make it easy to live with.

“From a proponent point of view, it’s an exhausting and extraordinarily frustrating process because there’s no transparency, there’s no milestones and there’s no accountability to any milestones,” he said. “we’re in this gray area of never-ending moving goal posts.”

The proponents of the ski resort said in an email that the timeline and process are still unclear.

The differing perspective on the bureaucratic delays is likely partly linked to the contrasting scale of the two projects. The larger the project, the longer the anticipated approval process, and the more wiggle room one has to accommodate more time spent on paperwork and waiting for government emails. While you can’t build a ski resort in a couple years, the gondola project’s proponents thought they could be selling tickets by now.

The project’s website initially anticipated approval of the gondola in 2021, and an opening date in the spring of 2023. Now, there’s no telling when the province might deliver a decision on whether or how the gondola may be built.

Local officials are also getting tired.

The province recently requested the resort proponents outline potential access roads to its alpine village. In June, the resort delivered its proposal, which the province then forwarded to the Fraser Valley Regional District for its input. It was just the latest in a series of “referrals” the province has handed local officials.

The FVRD said that without more technical details, it was hard to provide detailed comments. It did offer some basic insight, however, including discouraging any route that relied on access through the Chilliwack River Valley, given the one-way-out nature of transportation there.

But FVRD staff also told the province to stop wasting their time and avoid asking for more information until after they’ve decided on a single project.

“It is difficult for the FVRD to invest finite staff resources in multiple major proposals,” staff wrote. “It is also an inefficient use of staff resources to process competing development applications in the same area.

“It is recommended that the Province finds a path to internally coordinate to finalize one of the

proposed projects (i.e., BVMR or Cascade Skyline Gondola) in this area. Once a proposal is finalized to proceed, FVRD recommends creating a co-ordinated approval process so that all of FVRD's requirements are met prior to the formal approval.”

The hold up

The province says it is now figuring out a process, but has set no date for itself to make a decision.

Staff from two ministries are working together to “determine next steps of the evaluation and review,” a spokesperson told The Current in an email. Those steps include engaging with “local Sto:lo Nation groups” to ensure the decision aligns with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.

In a subject email asking for a timeline, the spokesperson wrote: “This resort major project review is a policy-based approach as opposed to a traditional regulatory approach, and as such, there are no defined timelines. This approach also includes the essential step of achieving consensus with First Nations before decisions can be made.”

That last sentence is key to understanding why some think neither project may ever be built.

The backers of both projects are adamant that they are actively seeking the participation of local Indigenous communities. But one has more to show for that than the other.

The resort “remains actively engaged with Stó:lō communities to ensure full equity participation, ownership, and design with local First Nations,” the project’s lawyer, Cody Hall, wrote in an email to The Current. (Hall himself has Ch’íyáqtel (Tzeachten) roots.) “BVMR’s goal is to gain the support from, and formalize a partnership with, each of the local First Nations.”

But though the resort has sought out backing from local First Nations, none have given it their formal support yet. The only municipality to declare its support for the mountain is the Township of Langley. The proposal also faces unanswered questions about access the access to winter snow.

The gondola project, on the other hand, is partly owned by Cheam First Nation. With about 500 members, Cheam is one of the largest single Stó:lō First Nations. Its large reserve is barely a kilometre from the base of the proposed gondola.

Cheam’s leaders have declared its staunch opposition to the resort proposal, while being the most vocal supporters of the gondola project, declaring it to be a “celebration of nature and natural spaces,” and helping the project also win the support of the City of Chilliwack. The project has also won the endorsement of Kwaw-kwaw-a-pilt and Skwah First Nations and Indigenous Tourism BC, Faulkner said.

But that still leaves more than a dozen Chilliwack-area First Nations that haven’t yet given their A-OK to the project.

The province any decision will require achieving “consensus with First Nations.” A provincial spokesperson said it “is looking to Stó:lō communities and working alongside them to determine a common understanding and approach for the recreation project proposed in the area.”

But what, exactly, does that mean in a place like the Fraser Valley?

The Fraser Valley’s Stó:lō First Nations are not a monolith, but a collection of two dozen local governments, each with its own leaders—most of whom must themselves win election on a regular basis. Many First Nations pool resources and knowledge and share services through organizations like the Stó:lō Tribal Council, Stó:lō Nation, and several groups used to jointly negotiate land claims. But most of those organizations represent a portion of local First Nations, not all of them.

With few pan-Stó:lō organizations, it’s unclear just how officials will determine when a sufficient “consensus” among appropriate First Nations has been reached. The S’ólh Téméxw Stewardship Alliance (STSA) is a political body that helps simplify the referral process. But the geography of the area is still complex.

The land in the mountains above Bridal Falls is the traditional territory of multiple First Nations—but not all Stó:lō First Nations’ territory extends to the area. So it’s unclear exactly how much more support Cheam will need to rally to get approval for its project.

And though the province says it won’t greenlight a mountain project without consensus among local First Nations, Cheam may feel that it shouldn’t have to wait much longer.

The First Nation’s reserve is located less than a kilometre from the site of the gondola’s proposed base at the former Bridal Falls Golf Club—which Cheam has bought. If every other Chilliwack-area First Nations don’t hop on board the gondola project, Cheam may argue it has the right to use its traditional territory.

But other First Nations can point to the use of the surrounding mountains by numerous local villages.

The province is hoping all First Nation governments agree to support a single project. But unanimous consensus is hard to achieve and isn’t a given on any topic. Without it, the fate of two key tourism projects may require the province—or the courts—to decide who else’s consent is necessary for a First Nation to pursue its own dreams on its traditional land.

This story has been updated to acknowledge the role of the S’ólh Téméxw Stewardship Alliance in the referrals process.