Inside the battle for Banff

0:00Welcome to Hub Headlines. Today's program features the best commentary and analysis published in the Hub for March 20th. Up first is Felice Chin, writing on Who Controls Banff? Inside the Decade Long Battle Over Rail, Gondolas and the Americanization of Canada's National Parks. What started as a plan to build a passenger train, connecting Calgary to Banff, has turned into something much bigger and much stranger. Involving an oil tycoon, a Decade Long Odyssey through Canada's regulatory hurdles, an American tourism giant, and a deeper debate about who benefits from our national parks. At some point, it became in for a penny, in for a pound, said Adam Wateris, the billionaire train proponent who ended up also buying a ski hill business to crystallize his vision. In the process, he and his wife Jan have filed multiple applications for the train, two Gondolas, and other related projects,

1:03while also launching a complaint alongside two other local ski hill operators against a dominant tourism company that they argue controls too much of the market. Eleven years after first securing land for the mega-project, there is still no train, though the private public partnership proposal is now before the federal government's newly created major projects office. The many steps that led Wateris to this point have, along the way, drawn in a wide range of players, including local Banff residents, environmentalists, competition bureau Canada, and its main watchdog. Parks Canada holds the keys to everything, said Keldon Bester, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly project, which looked into the tourism markets in Banff and Jasper last year, and concluded that they operate under an extreme monopoly. The issue has also spilled over to federal politics. William Stevenson, the conservative MP for the region, recently called for Ottawa to break up that monopoly.

2:05Putting the spotlight on whether Canada's national parks are being governed with competition in mind at all. Meanwhile, pursuit, the US-based company at the center of it all, says it has only done what's right for the Canadian Rockies, arguing it has invested heavily in the parks over the years, including in jobs, wildfire recovery, and environmental stewardship. Since the early 2000s, Wateris, better known as the executive chairman of Strathcona Resources, one of Canada's largest oil companies, has been trying to create a more walkable model of tourism in Banff, where he and his wife have lived for nearly three decades. The couple were inspired by what they saw in Zermatt, Switzerland, where visitors arrive without cars and move through tightly integrated systems of rail, gondolas, and pedestrian access. After securing a long-term lease for land for the Banff train station in 2015 and beginning work on related infrastructure,

3:06including an intercept parking lot, the vision began to take shape. The key to making passenger rail work is making sure that the passengers, once they're at their destination, don't need a vehicle. Because it defeats the whole purpose, Wateris told the hub, if you brought a train and then people had to rent cars, we don't want to do that. That insight quickly pushed the project far beyond a rail line and into a kind of cascading logic that even Wateris now acknowledges was unconventional. It's kind of backward. It wasn't the original plan, he said, but as things expand, you have to make sure the train is going to be successful. So, in 2018, he bought a ski hill. The acquisition of Mount Norkee was meant to anchor the system. To ensure that once visitors arrived, there was a clear, controlled pathway from the train station to one of Banff's primary attractions. The vision also includes a commercial promenade where people can shop and eat.

4:07This is a very large project, Wateris said. This will be the largest dedicated passenger rail system ever built in Canada. It also brought the project deeper into the realities of operating inside a national park, where every expansion, connection, and commercial activity runs through a dense web of federal rules, environmental considerations, and longstanding policy constraints. And that is where the vision began to collide with something else. What Wateris initially saw as a transportation and congestion problem, too many cars, too few alternatives, gradually revealed itself as a market problem. A major cause of that congestion was a sightseeing gondola on the far side of town. Wateris said, referring to the sulfur mountain gondola, one of Banff's busiest attractions. First opened in 1959. It was built to carry visitors some 700 meters to the summit of sulfur mountain, offering panoramic views of the Beau Valley.

5:07Over time, it is expanded to accommodate a growing number of tourists. For years, the gondola remained a centerpiece of the Brewster family business, a legendary name and brand in Alberta that dates back more than 130 years. In 1996, Arizona-based Viad Corp acquired Brewster. Over time, it consolidated its tourism holdings under the pursuit brand, headquartered in Colorado. In 2024, the parent company formally rebranded itself as pursuit attractions and hospitality. Today, it operates a sprawling portfolio of hotels, restaurants, transportation services, and six of the nine major paid attractions across Banff and Jasper. It also owns assets in the U.S., Iceland, and Costa Rica. This is a company that makes over half of its revenues in our national parks. Wateris said, these guys salute to the star-spangled banner. What critics like Wateris take issue with isn't just the American ownership

6:10of what is essentially classic Canadiana, but the gradual consolidation and bundling of those assets. They had been increasing prices at close to 10% a year, roughly four times the rate of inflation. Because of their pricing power, Wateris said, today, a single ticket for the gondola costs anywhere from $69 to $93 for an adult, depending on the time and day. That's roughly double what it cost a decade ago. When prices hovered in the $30 range, including $35 and 95 cents in 2014, and as low as $29 in 2019. A more comprehensive, so-called pursuit pass, which bundles access to multiple attractions, including cruises on Lake Minowanka and Maline Lake, access to the Columbia Icefield and Jasper Skywalk, starts at $271, with discounts of up to 40% across the package. Critics say that kind of pricing structure effectively crowds out competitors

7:11and eats up a huge chunk of disposable tourism money. This is a walled garden, Wateris said. Apple's got nothing on these guys in terms of an ecosystem that is keeping all the dollars within them. In 2024, when pursuit moved to acquire the Jasper Sky tram, one of the last major attractions not already under its control, the three remaining competitors, Mount Norkee, owned by the Wateris family, along with Sunshine Village and Lake Louise Ski Resort, challenged the deal, filing pleas with both Parks Canada and the Competition Bureau in an effort to block the purchase. It is a travesty that the major attractions in both Banff and Jasper Parks will be owned and managed by an American company whose primary goal is to maximize profits at the expense of Canadians and locally owned attractions, Charlie Locke, owner of Lake Louise Ski Resort, wrote in a letter that summer, in past presentations to investors,

8:11pursuit and its former parent company referenced high barriers to entry and deep competitive modes as corporate advantages. These are the hallmarks of monopolies and oligopolis, Bester from the Canadian anti-monopoly project said. But when the issue was put directly to regulators, officials chose not to intervene. In 2025, the Competition Bureau declined to block pursuit's acquisition of the Jasper Sky tram. The reasoning in part was that the market was already highly concentrated. As Wateris and other critics see it, that decision underscored a deeper problem. Once consolidation reaches a certain point, it becomes difficult to unwind, even when concerns are widely acknowledged. In this case, the Sky tram acquisition pushed pursuit's dominance from roughly 80% of the market for paid attractions to more than 90%. Put it another way, the ski hills split 8% of the market.

9:13Wateris said about the remaining norkey, sunshine and Lake Louise establishments. Steward back, the executive overseeing pursuits Banff and Jasper operations, said the regulators review speaks for itself. The Bureau assessed official market data, including how tourism experiences operate across different geographic areas in the Canadian Rockies. He said through an issued statement to the hub. With this information, the Bureau determined there were no competition concerns that warranted further steps. People will say, you're just a competitor. This is sour grapes, Wateris said. People will say, why don't you just go build a better product? Well, you can't. The system doesn't allow it. The very rules governing development inside national parks make it extraordinarily difficult for competitors to respond. Wateris argues those shifting constraints have shaped his own project at every step. Beyond the passenger rail line, for example,

10:14the Wateris family is also trying to build two separate gondolas. The first and most central is a gondola connecting the proposed train station in Banff, to the base of Mount Norkee. Designed as an aerial transit system, it would take visitors off a 6 km access road that cuts through a wildlife corridor. The second is tied to the ski hill itself, an expansion of existing lift infrastructure, aimed at increasing capacity and helping position Norkee as a year-round destination. Originally, the two gondolas were conceived as a single integrated system. Parks Canada had in fact granted Norkee that right under its master plan, several years before, Wateris acquired the ski hill. The agency even required the applications to be submitted together. But things started to unravel during the approvals process. In late 2019, Parks Canada rejected both gondolas, citing two design components that would need to be revised

11:16to comply with policies governing development limits and ski area management. The agency then directed Norkee to resubmit the project separately. By then, concerns around construction and redevelopment had galvanized some environmentalists to oppose the entire project. These processes are often more than a decade to approve, with no certainty at the end, said Wateris. Norkee made its second application for the gondola tied to the ski hill in 2022 and expects a decision later this year. It's an unbelievable amount of time, Wateris said. Of course, there's still the passenger rail itself, the original backbone of the broader master plan. After years of feasibility and technical studies, as well as coordination across multiple levels of government and jurisdictions, the most tangible result so far is a free intercept parking lot for visitors. As Wateris put it, long linear projects in Canada are not easy to take on.

12:20It's a reality familiar to anyone who has watched the country's pipeline debates unfold. For all the attention on corporate consolidation and regulatory gridlock, a huge part of the story ultimately runs through a single institution, Parks Canada. Its mandate is to protect and present nationally significant examples of Canada's natural and cultural heritage in ways that ensure the ecological and commemorative integrity of these places for present and future generations. In other words, the agency is designed to protect first and manage access second. It is not tasked with overseeing competition, regulating pricing, or ensuring a level playing field between private operators. Yet through this saga, it has effectively shaped the outcome in ways that critics argue have favored the main incumbent in pursuit. The Parks are a truly constructed market, Bester said. Parks Canada has a thumbs up and thumbs down, basically, on whatever happens commercially.

13:23That's because they are the landlord in these transactions. All commercial operators function under strict land use agreements, typically in the form of leases or licenses. If you want to operate a business within a national park, Parks Canada is the arbiter of that. Bester said, but on the question of market concentration, the agency steers clear of responsibility. When potential contributions are raised, Parks Canada cooperates fully with the competition bureau, a spokesperson for Parks Canada wrote in a statement to the hub. For some observers, that division cuts to the heart of the problem. There was a bit of a hot potato, where one said, I don't do competition, and the other said, I don't do parks, said Bester, about the two federal agencies. The Canadian Anti-Minopoli project looked into the affair and published a report in December, calling for Ottawa to unwind recent pursuit acquisitions, and reform Parks Canada's mandate to better promote competition and Canadian ownership.

14:25Mocha Lander, a Calgary-based economist at Concordia University, says expecting Parks Canada to balance conservation, tourism, and competition policy may be asking too much from an agency whose core purpose was never designed with markets in mind. More broadly, he cautions against assuming that market concentration is inherently a problem, particularly in a place like a national park. Economists would generally say a competitive market is better, Lander said, but there are some cases where having a single operator can actually be more efficient. In tightly controlled environments, like Banff and Jasper, he argues, a degree of consolidation may help manage overcrowding, reduce duplication, and even improve the visitor experience. If everybody were able to come in and set up whatever they wanted, you could quickly lose control of the national parks, he said, there can also be benefits for consumers.

15:26Bundled offerings, often cited by critics as a sign of market power, and in some cases lower prices and simplify planning for visitors. For Lander, the bigger issue may lie less with any single company, and more with the broader evolution of competition policy in Canada, where regulators have increasingly allowed mergers to proceed unless there is overwhelming evidence of harm. Policy has changed over the last 40 years, he explained. It used to be, we won't approve mergers unless you can show they're good for the consumer, it's now effectively the opposite. For all the setbacks, Waterus shows little sign of backing away. The train, the gondolas, the regulatory fights. What he once imagined as a single project has turned into a sprawling set of what he now half jokingly calls side jobs, but the core vision hasn't changed. You have to think at scale, he said enthusiastically.

16:26The major projects office confirmed it has received the rail proposal, but declined to provide further details, citing the need to avoid influencing potential outcomes. In his day job, Waterus recently made headlines for Strathcona resources failed bid to acquire Meg Energy, losing out to rival Sinovus in a high-profile consolidation play in Canada's oil sands. The contrast is hard to miss. For Waterus, the difference comes down to structure. Crude is a globally priced commodity, he notes, where even the largest Canadian firms remain relatively small players and act as price takers. Furthermore, consolidation in the sector has also largely taken the form of Canadian firms buying out foreign-owned assets. He and others describe the trend as a kind of Canadianization of the oil sands. In Bonf and Jasper, Waterus argues, the pattern runs the other way. What's happening in the parks is the opposite, he said.

17:27It's the Americanization of Canadian national parks. That was an analysis by Felice Chin. She is the hub's Alberta bureau chief. You can read the full text of her article on our website, the hub.ca. Our second essay is by Alicia Plannencheach, writing on how Canada has a long, hard road ahead. It wants to meet its lofty investment ambitions. From India to Australia to Japan, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been traveling the globe to woo investors and close trade deals in an effort to usher in a new wave of investment in Canada. Even the United States has taken note, but this country still has its work cut out for it if it wants to get anywhere close to its investment ambitions. Last year, the government of Canada said it expected its budget to enable $1 trillion in investment over the next five years, half of that coming from the private sector. Driving this was a mix of policy changes, incentives, and spending

18:28tied to capital-enabled economic growth. As Carney recently assured foreign business leaders, Canada is now the place to invest. It has slashed red tape, cut taxes, and is committed to moving forward major projects quickly. We're fast-tracking $1 trillion of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors, and beyond. He told an audience in Mumbai last month, but so far, it's the same old, same old. Last year, the private sector put around $600 billion into capital investments, including new machinery, technology, and both residential and non-residential construction. But that was just 3% more than the year prior. This year, growth looks similarly lackluster. Recently released industry-level estimates of capital spending, including both private and public sector dollars, suggest investment will limp along again in 2026,

19:30growing by just 4%. However, even that growth may be overstated. Government capital spending, which has outpaced the private sector for the past 3 years, may be masking weakness in business investment. Industries most closely tied to government spending, such as public administration and utilities, were among the fastest growing, while sectors like manufacturing flatlined. And because these industry estimates cover only non-residential investment, they exclude what could become another drag as the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation expects housing construction to decline through 2028. If Canada is to reach its goal, the private sector will need to ramp up capital spending by a lot and fast. Every year, it pushes its target further out of reach. If investment crawls along as anticipated this year, we will need to see 11% average annual growth over the next four years to meet the government's goal.

20:31More than double the pace seen in recent years, and a level Canada has never been able to sustain, going back as far as comparable data exists. That's going to be an uphill battle, to say the least. For starters, many factors beyond Canada's control and borders are weighing on big and long-term investment decisions. But these are the conditions under which the target was set. The bigger issue is why investment has been so weak until now, it's no mystery. For years, businesses have said that the regulatory system is the biggest barrier to investment in Canada, and now we have even more international evidence backing that up. Despite some small changes, including Bill C5, to move along some major projects more quickly, and the recent red tape review, no major systemic reform has been made in this area. No amount of tinkering around the edges will fix this problem. In order to see the investment the federal government wants

21:32and the country needs, Canada will have to do the real hard work of regulatory reform. Budget 2025 estimates that enabling this additional investment could generate significant economic benefits, including meaningful improvements to Canadians' living standards. The reward will be worth the effort. That was an analysis by Alicia Plannencheach. She is the Director of Policy and Economics at the Business Council of Alberta. You can read the full text of her article on our website, the hub.ca. That's it for today's edition of Hub Headlines. We hope you enjoyed the program. Hub Headlines is produced by Alicia Rao. This program was narrated by automated voices. Thanks for listening.