It’s Election Time - Get Engaged!
September 2025 Newsletter
What’s Happening with the Spa and Hotel Proposal?
According to the developers’ website, the project remains in the “Engagement & Policy Development Phase”. It appears that no new technical reports have been added to the developer’s website since its last community engagement session in December 2024, and no proposal has been submitted to the Town of Canmore yet.
We are uncertain about when the public hearing on the development will take place, but with the coming election, it is important to have candidates express their views on whether the community benefits of the proposed development would justify the required changes to the Municipal Development Plan for this project to proceed.
Our assessment is that the proposed site is not appropriate for this development. The lands are designated as Community Open Space and Recreation, and should remain so.
Get Engaged - It’s Election Time!
On October 20th, municipal elections will take place in Alberta. In Canmore, all but one of the incumbents (Joanna McCallum) will be running again for office. You can find the full list of candidates at: Canmore Register of Candidates.
There are currently five all candidates' events scheduled, with details for each available on the Town of Canmore’s Meet the Candidates page. We encourage you to attend at least one of these events to ask questions about candidates’ views on changing the Municipal Development Plan to allow the proposed spa and hotel development. The Forum on the Environment hosted by the Biosphere Institute on September 29th may be of particular interest.
Here are some questions you may want to ask candidates regarding the proposed spa and hotel with some background to help you have a dialogue on the issue with the candidate:
Question: Would you support amending the land designation in Canmore’s Municipal Development Plan from Community Open Space and Recreation to a Direct Control District in order allow a hotel/spa or other development to be constructed in the lands adjacent to a habitat patch, a wildlife corridor and the Rundleview neighborhood? What do you think the benefits and costs of approving this change would be – to the community and to wildlife?
Background:
Ø Under the current designation, the lands are to function as public spaces and key informal meeting places for the community and are a foundational part of our Town; they were never intended for commercial, resort or tourist development
Ø Any benefit to the community from the hotel and spa would result if it was developed elsewhere, on land already designated within the Municipal Development Plan for this type of commercial resort
Ø Other community costs include increased traffic on the Spray Lakes road, which already becomes congested on the weekends due to traffic going to and from Quarry Lake, the Nordic Centre, the Forebay, Grassi Lakes and the other provincial parks further south.
Ø The incremental infrastructure costs to the Town are currently unknown
Question: What concerns would you have about putting a major development on lands that are both undermined and the site of former surface mining? How do you see those risks being addressed?
Background:
Ø The proposed development is extremely challenging due to complex geohazards (faults), the proximity of these geohazards to the Rundle Forebay, and the complex undermining, with an overlay of surface mining
Ø Concerns about contamination include the surface mine, overburden, tailings, coal dust and the mine itself on the proposed development site, on the increased risks of chemical contamination of the nearby soil, streams and water table
Ø Other concerns include coal forming a secondary fuel in the event of a forest fire in the area, along with the release of methane and hydrogen sulphides
Ø There is also the risk of a coal seam fire - There are anecdotal reports of a coal seam/tailing fire that burned for approximately 7 - 10 years on the lower part of Olympic Way when staff accommodations were torn down
Ø There is also the risk of a coal seam fire - There are anecdotal reports of a coal seam/tailing fire that burned for approximately 7 - 10 years on the lower part of Olympic Way when staff accommodations were torn down
Ø These environmental concerns need to be assessed and addressed before development is considered, and any remediation undertaken will need to be monitored continuously
Ø It is unclear who would pay for remediation
Question: Do you think it’s appropriate to have a major commercial development immediately adjacent to both a residential neighbourhood, a habitat patch, and a wildlife corridor? If so, why? And if not, why not?
Background:
Ø Construction of a hotel and spa would further reduce already scarce wildlife habitat and limit an avenue through which wildlife can more through the Bow Valley, an internationally recognized wildlife corridor
Ø The development may also increase the incidence of wildlife traveling through the Rundleview and Hospital Hill neigbourhoods, increasing the risk of human-wildlife conflict
Ø Although the lands in question are relatively small, the cumulative impacts of every additional development matter; each project may have seemingly modest impacts, but taken together they put ever more pressure on remaining habitat
Ø The Town is obliged to have regard for the 2012 Bow Corridor Ecosystem Advisory Group Wildlife Corridor and Habitat Patch Guidelines; this means that new land use activities on lands adjacent to wildlife corridors and habitat patches should include those that are less intrusive and should follow a gradient from less to more intrusive
Ø The Bow Corridor Ecosystem Advisory Group (BCEAG) is a partnership involving the Municipal District of Bighorn, Town of Canmore, Town of Banff, Banff National Park and the Provincial Government. The goal is to maintain multi-species wildlife movement corridors along and across the Bow Valley to link wildlife habitat patches.
Question: The Municipal Development Plan was created in 2016 after significant consultation with the community. It would need to be amended if this proposed development is to proceed. Under what circumstances do you think it should be amended? What in your opinion would constitute a significant benefit to the community that would justify amending the Plan?
Background
Ø There have only been seven amendments to the Municipal Development Plan since its inception in 2016; most have had obvious significant benefits to the community, such as adding the requirement for third party environmental impact statements for lands the Town is developing itself, and restrictions on development in high hazard steep creek areas with preparation of a steep creek hazard and risk assessment in moderate hazard zones
Ø The MDP Amendment relating to the Three Sisters Village and Smith Creek developments was approved pursuant to a court order and the 1992 NRCB ruling and cannot be considered as a precedent for the proposed amendment.
Joe Pavelka Talk on Livability in Contested Spaces
In June, Protecting our Futures hosted Dr. Joe Pavelka at artsPlace. Joe described Canmore’s context and identified it as being more a community dealing with amenity or lifestyle migration than a purely tourist town. We are one of the last places with good accessibility to wild spaces, and there is a burden associated with that. As a “contested space” everyone wants part of Canmore – the old residents, the new fulltime residents, the new part-time residents and the tourists, and there is a constant renegotiation of complex and changing socioeconomic conditions. Joe had many insights into how residents can navigate these changes, and identify how we can identify what is important to us as a community.
You’ll be able to view a link to the talk on our website shortly.
Please Take Action
www.protectingourfutures.org - take action
Please learn more about the proposal, sign our petition, donate, write a letter to the editor, ask questions of election candidates and share information about the proposed development with your family, friends and neighbours.