Parks Canada cools to Radium Hot Springs Lodge

January 27, 2002
Source: National Post
Original story - link verified on ,
By Robert Remington

After eight years of trying to be a responsible business operator in a national park, Hans Broere says he is frustrated by Parks Canada bureaucrats who are pushing him to the brink of bankruptcy. Enticed and encouraged by the federal agency to purchase the dilapidated Radium Hot Springs Lodge in Kootenay National Park in 1994, Mr. Broere says he invested more than $3-million renovating the interior of the 66-room, 1960s facility because Parks Canada told him it wanted to promote the soothing natural hot springs to the world, making it Canada's Bath of England. On June 26, 1998, the mood of the federal agency changed. Sheila Copps, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, announced a one-year moratorium on development in the parks. Ecological integrity became Parks Canada's new priority, and Mr. Broere had to halt plans to upgrade the lodge's ugly exterior. He said he wasn't even allowed to put a coat of paint on the doors.