Editor:
Mr. Shier’s shrill argument for rescue insurance in last week’s Outlook in misleading in two factual areas, as well as philosophically uncharitable.
Contrary to Mr. Shier’s implication that the taxpayer pays for backcountry rescues, the national park’s emergency responses are funded by park user fees. The visitors who fund user fees and the salaries of many Bow Valley residents are often drawn to the area by recreation activities that can require a rescue when plans go awry.
Park visitors pre-pay the potential costs of a rescue with their entrance fees; in essence this is already a form of insurance. Canadians who do not visit the national parks, do not contribute to the costs of rescues within the parks.
Mr. Shier also implies that backcountry rescue operations represent a very significant cost. While dramatic, technical rescues represent a small portion of the Visitor Safety (VS) team’s operations in both time and money. The rescue specialists perform a variety of essential tasks, including avalanche control, safety education for both the public and parks personnel, safety training for parks personnel, disaster planning and response, and medical and rescue response for non-technical emergencies that are inaccessible to normal fire and ambulance services.
While providing these essential services, VS specialists are also available for technical-backcountry rescue. Marginal costs associated with technical rescue represent a small portion of the overall budget for the visitor safety team as the majority of the expense is already covered by the fixed costs required to maintain their other essential duties.
Mr. Shier implies that those who require a technical rescue are involved in “dangerous activities” and have “failed to get the message” of backcountry safety.
I would suggest that it is quite difficult to determine who has been prudent and who has been reckless. Personally, I am unwilling to judge one person as foolhardy and another as a victim of bad luck – accidents happen to good people with good intentions.
One of the characteristics of our society is our provision of care regardless of the ability to pay or judgment on the worth of victims. I would urge Outlook readers who share Mr. Shier’s confidence in indicting backcountry-rescue victims for “foolhardy” actions to consider their own lifestyle choices and occasional errors in judgment.
There are few among us who have never done something discouraged by our doctors, left a kettle unattended on the stove, exceeded the speed limit, or failed to look both ways before crossing the street.
Josh Briggs,
Canmore
