The purpose of the trip is to meet potential investors who, if interested, could bolster B.C.’s ski industry as a whole, and also local ski resort projects like the proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort, should the development get the green light from the provincial government.

B.C. Minister Pat Bell is unable to make the trip to France, so he is sending East Kootenay MLA Bill Bennett, former tourism minister, to represent him and the province.

The following people will be travelling in a group with Mr. Bennett to meet the French investors: Rainer Giersch (European representative for B.C.), Oberto Oberti (Oberto Oberti Architecture, Pheidias Project Management and Glacier Resorts Ltd.), Grant Costello and Jill Bodkin (Glacier Resorts Ltd.), Mayor Dee Conklin (Village of Radium Hot Springs), Rick Jensen (Panorama Mountain Resort), Doug Clovechok and Todd Mitchell (Invermere and the Columbia Valley), and First Nations representatives from the Simpcw Band of the Valemount, B.C., area, where another glacier ski development is currently being planned by Valemount Glacier Destinations Ltd.

Referring to the potential investors only as “a major resort company,” Mr. Bennett said, “The company has been interested in the Jumbo Glacier Resort (JGR) project for over a decade and is returning to B.C. later this winter to further assess JGR, as well as a project in the Valemount area. The company is well aware that the JGR project lacks a signed master development agreement, but is also aware that it has an Environmental Certificate and an approved Master Development Plan.”

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Source: The Columbia Valley Pioneer