Sun Peaks (BC), Canada – On Monday, Sun Peaks will become Canada’s newest municipality and – under special new Provincial legislation – it will be the country’s first “mountain resort” municipality.nIt is only fitting that the town, north of Kamloops and home to the B.C. Interior’s largest ski resort, will be led by Al Raine as its first mayor. Raine, a former National Ski Team coach and husband to Senator (and Olympian) Nancy Greene Raine, has played an integral role in the development of the ski industry in British Columbia since the mid 70s and was on the first municipal council in Whistler, B.C., in the early 80s.
“To be a great resort,” says Raine, who is also the former Chair of Tourism Sun Peaks, “you need to be a great community. With Sun Peaks’ new status as a municipality we will be in a better position to lobby for essential community services like a school and healthcare. Of course, there are also financial advantages, in addition to municipal tax revenues, Sun Peaks will be eligible for a Provincial grant for small communities and as a mountain resort municipality, the local government will receive a portion of the hotel HST levied in the resort.”
Discussions leading up to the establishment of the new municipality began four years ago. A consultation and planning process was implemented by the Province of British Columbia and, at the end of the process, a referendum was held. Seventy-three percent of the community voted in favor of becoming a municipality.
“The community is excited that Sun Peaks will finally govern many of the services it needs from within and the electorate has spoken clearly that local issues should be dealt with by local government. This community is unique in many ways and it was only a matter of time before self governance came to fruition,” says Adam Earle, Publisher of Sun Peaks Independent News. “We have a world class resort, an engaged community population and business sector, and a huge tax base, so it only makes sense that decisions regarding the future of this community are made in this community.”
On June 12th, two mayoral candidates and six council candidates vied for seats in the municipality’s first election. The council consists of a mayor and four councilors. Three of the councilors are elected, but under the mountain resort municipality legislation one of the councilors is appointed by the Provincial Government to represent the interests of Sun Peaks Resort Corporation.
After tallying up the 323 ballots that were cast, Raine was elected as mayor and he is to be joined by elected councilors Mike Forster, Ines Popig and Mario Pozza. The appointed councilor is Darcy Alexander, Vice President and General Manager of Sun Peaks Resort Corporation, the company that operates the ski resort and is the largest local employer.
At 68, Raine, who has lived in Sun Peaks since 1994, might be expected to be taking it easy and spending more time golfing and skiing, but he says he couldn’t resist the opportunity to be part of building Sun Peaks into a vibrant, thriving community.
“We want to make Sun Peaks a great place to live,” says Raine. “We have some similar issues to those faced in Whistler. We need to look at providing affordable housing and employee housing. We also want to develop more community facilities and services. Eventually, we would like to see an eastern access road to the resort, so that visitors traveling the Trans Canada to and from Banff, will have better access to the resort.”
The inauguration of mayor and council will take place at 2:30 p.m. on Monday at Delta Sun Peaks.