Who would you rather anger: your neighbours or your boss?

That, roughly, is the choice that Jasper National Park Supt. Greg Fenton must make in the coming weeks.

Fenton has the unenviable task of deciding whether the controversial Glacier Discovery Walk proposal will proceed or not, and his decision is expected by the end of the month. Competing pressures are compelling him to go one of two ways.

On the one hand, a large and vocal group of opponents – both local Jasper residents and Canadians across the country – are urging him to reject the proposal. If he approves the project, these people will be quite upset.

On the other hand, Fenton’s ultimate boss – Prime Minister Stephen Harper – has ordered all federal departments to tighten their belts and bolster their budgets’ bottom lines as the federal government looks to tame what, in absolute terms, amounts to the largest deficit in Canadian history. If Fenton rejects the Glacier Discovery Walk – along with the significant amount of revenue it would bring to Jasper National Park – the prime minister will be quite upset.

This choice was surely tough enough already, but two recent developments have ratcheted up the pressure on Fenton even more.

First, it was revealed publicly in late December that Parks Canada is commissioning a study to identify potential sources of new revenue. This isn’t exactly earth-shattering news, given Ottawa’s aforementioned budget woes, but specific confirmation that the federal agency is actively seeking to “get entrepreneurial” (as a Globe and Mail headline put it) will further fuel existing criticisms that the pursuit of profit is detracting Parks Canada from its true mandate. If Fenton approves the Glacier Discovery Walk, critics will surely howl that his decision was unduly influenced by money, citing this news as just the latest evidence.

Second, there has been an explosion of public opposition to the Discovery Walk across Canada in just the last week, thanks largely to the issue being picked up by Avaaz, an organization which promotes political activism online. A petition at Avaaz.org 

has been widely circulated through social media and other sources since it was first posted on Jan. 5. By Jan. 9 more than 100,000 people had registered to voice their opposition to the Discovery Walk. For many, the petition was the first time they had heard about the proposal for Jasper National Park. 

This development not only increases the public pressure on Fenton to reject the proposal, it also lends credence to a common criticism made during the roughly three-week-long public consultation process on the Discovery Walk’s environmental assessment. Many people urged Parks Canada to extend the Dec. 16 deadline for public feedback, noting that most Canadians hadn’t even heard about the project let alone had time to read and digest the 169-page document. Long-time critics of the Discovery Walk will reasonably argue that the sudden surge in public opposition to the project is precisely what Parks Canada was trying to avoid.

All this makes it even more difficult for Fenton to green-light the project, but if we were betting on the outcome, we’d wager heavily that he still will.

Why? Because, for one thing, the language Parks Canada has been using throughout the past 12 months – up to and including its response to some of the initial inaccuracies and general hyperbole contained in the Avaaz petition last week – suggests the agency is firmly behind the project. Secondly, the environmental assessment fairly concluded that the impact on land, plants and animals would be minimal, and it’s these impacts that are to be the primary criteria for the superintendent’s decision.

Fenton did say, however, that he will “certainly need to take into account broader public sentiment” when he makes his decision. But, even with the recent outpouring of sentiment against the Discovery Walk, it would take a great degree of courage for the superintendent to put these people’s wishes ahead of the wishes of the prime minister.

As usual, the boss will likely get his way.