MP David Wilks (Con.) during the funding announcement July 16, joined by Oshawa MP Colin Carrie (left) and Mount Revelstoke and Glacier National Parks Superintendent Nicholas Irving. Photo: Aaron Orlando/Revelstoke Mountaineer

Kootenay-Columbia MP David Wilks has admitted to a $32.6-million “mistake” after a Revelstoke Mountaineer investigation uncovered multimillion-dollar discrepancies in a funding announcement made in Revelstoke on July 16.

That day, Wilks joined Oshawa MP Colin Carrie for a press event at the Monashee Lookout in Mount Revelstoke National Park. With local media on hand, and about a dozen other Parks Canada staff and attendees looking on, Wilks unveiled $156.6 million in funding for Mount Revelstoke and Glacier national parks capital projects, including bridge work, Trans-Canada Highway paving, new avalanche mitigation work, trails work and building upgrades.

But residents started questioning details of the announcement. They looked at breakdowns of the projects up for funding and noted that several of them had already started in the summer of 2014, some were significantly complete, and at least one — the $3.4 million Woolsey Creek Bridge upgrade in Mount Revelstoke park — had already finished.

The Mountaineer sent an information request to Parks Canada, which responded that a total of $54.8 million worth of the projects announced were in fact from the 2014 budget, not the new infrastructure fund.

The projects include a $3.3-million Trans-Canada Highway Bridge upgrade to an Illecillewaet River Bridge, a $35.2-million paving, guardrail and slope stabilization project on the Trans-Canada in Glacier National Park, a $12.9-million paving project in Mount Revelstoke National Park, and a $3.4-million rehabilitation project on the Woolsey Creek Bridge in Mount Revelstoke National Park.

When asked about the discrepancy, Wilks acknowledged his error.

“I made a mistake,” he told the Mountaineer. He listed several of the projects, admitting they were in fact 2014 projects. “So, that’s $32.6 million that was expensed to those projects. So the 2015 announcement should have been $123.4 million, which are the remainder of the projects that you had listed.”

Wilks explained the discrepancy by saying the 2014 budget had only partly funded some of the projects, and that the remainder would come out of new infrastructure funding.

Halifax MP Megan Leslie, the NDP Opposition critic for Environment, which includes the Parks portfolio, said she was not surprised by the tactic.

“What we have is the Conservatives having these press conferences to make it look like they’re doing something, when first of all they’re letting the parks crumble around their very feet, and secondly, they pull bait and switch,” she said. “It’s really disappointing.”

She described years of capital funding shortfalls, saying the new infrastructure funding doesn’t do enough to deal with years of capital funding neglect in the Parks system.