Ontario Parks testing flat fees, forcing many backcountry campers to pay at least three times more for sites

TORONTO -- Ontario Parks has been quietly running a pilot project in which it charges a flat fee, forcing many campers to pay at least 300 per cent more for a backcountry site than previous seasons.

The provincial government is in its second year of testing the flat fees for backcountry camping at the Massasauga and the Temagami cluster of parks, charging $40.75 and $32.50 per night respectively, regardless of the size of a group. Previously, campers were charged $9 a night per person.

“These pilot fee changes make backcountry camping fees consistent with our flat-rate per-campsite car camping fee model,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) said in an email to CTVNews.ca.

Canoe enthusiast and bestselling author Kevin Callan, a.k.a. The Happy Camper, told CTVNews.ca that people who like to trek solo or as a couple are getting the sticky end of the marshmallow stick while organized groups and larger families end up paying less.

“The main reason why backcountry people are really upset right now is you really get screwed if you’re a solo paddler or going as a couple because you’re paying three to four times what they used to,” said Callan. “That’s an incredible increase.”

Callan said Ontario Parks faced complaints that the backcountry was costly for large families and organized groups because "they'd have to pay per person, whereas at campground, you pay per site.”

MECP said, based on previous data for reservations and group sizes, the average backcountry group comprises four people while solo campers make up just 11 per cent of bookings and pairs at 38 per cent. It justified the fees as “reflective of the amenities available at the respective parks.”

Hap Wilson, author and co-founder of environment group Earthroots, said it is “ludicrous” to use amenities to justify an increase of as much as 400 per cent.

“Temagami is a prime example,” he said. “The installation of maybe half a dozen primitive [toilets] does not rationalize the authorization of increasing park fees to that extent.”

Wilson told CTVNews.ca he believes a fee system is necessary, “but to increase it to those ludicrous amounts will have serious ramifications.”

“Ontario Parks has to make more money. And the only way to do that is to increase the fees,” Wilson said. “And what that exactly is doing is it's creating a caste system with backcountry users, people who want to enjoy nature and it really puts the price range out of the ballpark for the majority of people who can't really afford to spend $40 a night every night in small groups.”

Fines, boycotts and trash

While both experts agree Ontario Parks is under-funded and dependent on park fees to make a profit, they believe if the flat fee is adopted province-wide, there could be consequences.

“People are just going to pay a fine for unlawfully occupying a campsite,” Callan said. “So they're going to say, ‘Look, it's cheaper for me to pay a $125 fine than actually $50 a night.’ Others will just boycott it and say, ‘I'm going anyway and heck with you. I'm going to boycott it by not paying you.’”

An online petition against the pilot project was created last year, claiming the fee increase is “unfair and precludes the use of campsites by those of us who travel solo, many of whom have done volunteer work within some of the parks.” As of Tuesday, nearly 7,000 people have signed the petition.

There’s also the concern of a potential environmental impact.

“People are just not going to go to the parks,” Wilson said. "They will be forced into other places, into Crown land which historically has been terribly mismanaged over the last several decades. They are depleting the areas that are available for people to recreate in.”

Even though Ontario Parks is incentivizing large groups, it does not anticipate an increase in the size of backcountry groups as a result of moving to the flat fee, resulting in little ecological impact.

Many Ontario residents are itching to explore the great outdoors after a year of COVID-19 lockdowns, and some are trying camping for the first time – which has some experienced campers concerned, Callan said.

“Right now, they are being labelled ‘COVID campers.’ They are escaping the pandemic,” Callan said. “People who have always camped in the interior are getting very worried that all these large groups are coming in to sites and leaving garbage.”

The MECP said it will “conduct a review of the pilot at the end of the 2021 season to determine the long-term plan for backcountry fees across Ontario Parks.”