The Kananaskis Conservation Pass raised $15 million in 2025. If you'd like to know exactly how that money was spent on the trails, campsites, and conservation work it was designed to fund, you're in good company – so would the Alberta government.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen confirmed the pass generated $15 million last year but said he didn't have a breakdown of how that revenue had been invested in K-Country.
He offered a general accounting: conservation officers, enforcement, “a multitude of different things.” It is, by any measure, a fairly relaxed relationship with $15 million.
The pass – introduced in 2021 – costs $15 for a day visit or $90 for an annual pass. According to recent reporting, around 300,000 are sold each year.
Visitors buying it have largely assumed, reasonably enough, that the money flows back into Kananaskis Country, which Alberta documents have previously put at over four million visits annually, with some recent reporting suggesting that figure is now closer to 5.5 million.
The Gap Between What Was Promised and What Was Spent
Alberta's budget documents show that Kananaskis-area trail-upgrade funding has been revised downward, though the exact year-by-year amounts are not straightforward to read from the available tables.
What the documents do show is that planned investment in the region has been reprofiled rather than maintained – and that the province has not provided any clear, itemised explanation of how 2025 pass revenue maps onto specific Kananaskis projects.
Loewen's ministry was asked which, if any, of the province's broader $275 million outdoor recreation upgrade programme – announced Wednesday and covering three years provincewide – would be directed to Kananaskis. No answer was provided.
The Volunteer Groups Keeping the Trails Open Are Getting Less
Trevor Julian, executive director of Friends of Kananaskis Country, one of the volunteer organisations doing much of the hands-on trail work in the region, said the funding picture isn't straightforward.
He does see provincial money being spent – improvements to trails at Mt. Yamnuska and Ha Ling Peak, additional conservation officers – but acknowledges the overall picture is opaque.
“It is sometimes challenging trying to figure out where the revenue from the conservation pass goes,” Julian said. His organisation received $100,000 from the province for trail work, according to recent reporting, and as of Wednesday was still waiting to hear what it would receive in the coming year.
“We don't know our funding for the upcoming year, but we anticipate funding,” he said – which is a polite way of describing a fairly precarious position for a group maintaining trails used by millions of people.
MLA Sarah Elmeligi, who represents Banff-Kananaskis for the NDP, said the volunteer groups maintaining K-Country are telling her their provincial funding is being reduced. She has been calling for the pass to be scrapped since 2022, arguing that the revenue disappears into general provincial funds rather than returning to the region.
Paying for Parks Twice and Not Getting Anything Extra
Elmeligi's case is blunt. “For those buying the pass, they're paying for parks twice, and they're not getting anything extra,” she said. She argues the pass was sold to Albertans as a direct mechanism to fund the pressures that increased visitation was placing on Kananaskis – and that it has never functioned that way.
The NDP's position is that abolishing the pass and replacing the revenue through increased operational spending would be both fairer and more transparent. Loewen countered that more money is spent in K-Country annually than the pass alone raises, and that Alberta's parks fees remain competitive with other provinces.
He also noted the province is running an online public consultation on the future land use of the Ghost-Kananaskis region, open until June 5.
For the roughly 300,000 people buying the pass each year and heading into one of Alberta's most-used outdoor spaces, the practical question is a simple one: is the place being maintained to the standard that millions of annual visits demands? The answer, much like the minister's breakdown of expenditures, remains unavailable.