recently<\/a> been photographed with his dog off-leash on Tunnel Mountain. According to sources, he has done this in and around the Banff townsite on multiple occasions.<\/p>\nAt a time when clear, transparent messaging, being receptive, and quite frankly, a public apology were necessary, the Banff field unit gave an ambiguous response\u00a0on the\u00a0matter, intentionally leaving details out and delaying answers\u00a0to follow-up questions. Their original statement might as well had an audio attachment of the losing horn on The Price Is Right. As of the print deadline on Wednesday (Oct. 7), a response to\u00a0follow-up questions went unanswered.<\/p>\n
The tight-lipped, sweep-it-under-the-rug approach should make\u00a0the public’s skin crawl\u00a0and question what accountability and genuine trust can be expected moving forward when decisions from the office are made about the park\u2019s wildlife and ecosystem.<\/p>\n
Parks Canada regulations require dogs to be on a leash when in a national park as they could harm or stress protected wildlife as well as diminish the experience of residents and visitors. While not a criminal offence, \u201cit is the law\u201d for dogs to be on leash, says the federal agency.<\/p>\n
Entire campaigns by Parks Canada, online messaging, verbiage and direct in-person dialogue have been dedicated to this concept for many years. During the time when the superintendent had his off-leash dog, Parks Canada and wildlife groups were sending out messaging about the\u00a0elk rut, otherwise known as mating season,\u00a0which is currently underway.<\/p>\n
Part of Parks Canada\u2019s Banff field unit’s response to the Outlook was that an investigation into the matter\u00a0happened\u00a0and has since\u00a0been concluded \u2013 in less than two business days. What has failed to be mentioned is who led the investigation and what the conclusions are. If the same standard is being held for everyone, real proof of accountability must be\u00a0upheld for those in\u00a0positions of power.<\/p>\n
This happened following a high-profile court case this past summer that saw\u00a0a tourist\u00a0fined $1,500 for failing to have their\u00a0dog on leash during a grizzly bear encounter in Banff National Park.<\/p>\n
Some might\u00a0argue that it happened just once or it was a slip of the mind. We all make mistakes. However, there is a significant difference in responsibility between\u00a0a tourist and a federal employee being paid to uphold ecological integrity. One\u00a0is well-informed\u00a0and should have\u00a0situational awareness.<\/p>\n
If there is one person who should eat, sleep and breathe\u00a0the\u00a0off-leash dog rule, it\u2019s the head of Banff National Park. It was part of the Outlook’s decision-making to run this story, as authority figures need to be held accountable for their actions just like the rest of us.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, it is usually\u00a0wildlife and\/or dogs that ultimately end up paying the price\u00a0in these situations.<\/p>\n
Moving forward, I would challenge and highly encourage the hushed, or perhaps muzzled, Banff field unit to re-evaluate their transparency method. Start by giving straight answers and serve what’s\u00a0best in the public interest\u00a0and without hidden motives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m not sure what stinks worse: the foul odours wafting from Canmore\u2019s wastewater treatment plant or Parks Canada\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":929121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-929120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}