Carson Binda

Parks Canada will spend about $12 million on a plan to kill invasive deer and restore native vegetation on Sidney Island (beside the Saanich Peninsula in BC), according to documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. That’s more than double the cost that has been widely reported for the controversial project on the small Gulf Island. “It’s appalling that Parks Canada blew $12 million on a project that local hunters have been doing for free,” the federation’s B.C. director, Carson Binda, said on Wednesday at a news conference in front of the B.C. legislature. …Parks Canada’s forecast spending of $11.988 million on the restoration of Sidney Island is spread over eight years, according to its Fur to Forest budget… Including $2.8 million in salaries and benefits to Parks Canada staff, $1.5 million in studies, $800,000 for Indigenous participation, $53,000 for forest restoration services and plants and trees — and $4.1 million in deer-eradication services.