The Progressive Conservatives hope to gain traction in northern Manitoba and other cabin-rich regions by calling for a two-year moratorium on cottage fee hikes.
The NDP government previously unveiled cottage fee increases the PCs say range from 250 to 750 per cent over time.
“The result of these hikes is multi-generational cottages will have to be sold because of the sharp rise in costs,” Shannon Martin, opposition critic for Conservation and Water Stewardship, wrote in a recent opinion piece.
Martin wrote that provincial law requires Manitoba Conservation to prepare estimates and actual expenditures for each park district on an annual basis, ensuring transparency for those paying for services.
But the NDP failed to maintain complete records of those estimates for more than a decade, he wrote, and for several years kept no records at all.
Martin wrote that his party is now calling for a two-year moratorium on cottage fee increases to allow for an audit to ensure cottagers pay no more than they should.
In 2013, the province announced that Bakers Narrows cottagers would see their average annual provincial fees rise by nearly $1,000 over the following decade.
At the time, a provincial spokesperson said the higher fees reflected the fact that services for cottagers in provincial parks are, in Manitoba as a whole, largely subsidized by other taxpayers.
