People really need to wake up to how this works. This isn't an unfortunate exception. It's the natural and desired result of free markets and free trade pushers (neoliberalism more general.) You need something done for the government (or private enterprise,) tender some offers, choose the lowest, regardless of ownership or location. For the intents and purposes of using market forces to distribute goods and services - that's a perfect outcome. We gotta make more and more people understand this isn't some strange outcome but the system working as intended by its designers. And if they want different outcomes, the system design has to change.

Quebec’s park management agency, the Société des établissements de plein air du Québec, operates its own system

Is Québec really the only government in Canada that made the right choice? Maybe they should offer to run things for Parks Canada too, if the federal government has fallen so far into neoliberal neglect that it's incapable of doing it on their own.

Go camping at your provincial or federal parks, they're beautiful, inexpensive, and they have their own websites

This is why for the most part, post-2020, I’ve stopped going to government campgrounds and usd forestry service sites instead.

It’s been really annoying that this closes off large chunks of backcountry camping as well; however, there’s still lots of backcountry where you pay to park your vehicle, not per-person in the backcountry, so the solution there is: park outside the park and walk/bicycle in to the trailhead.

Many of those frustrating queues and booking systems are operated not by the parks themselves but by a tech company called Camis Inc., run out of offices in Michigan and Wisconsin. In addition to its national contract to operate Parks Canada’s reservation system, it has contracts with six provinces and two territories: Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories.

Fucking hell the greeds have taken over everything.

Many of those frustrating queues and booking systems are operated not by the parks themselves but by a tech company called Camis Inc., run out of offices in Michigan and Wisconsin. In addition to its national contract to operate Parks Canada’s reservation system, it has contracts with six provinces and two territories: Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories.

Was this already post in Lemmy.ca ?

In BC, when I last went, hikes and day use were free. Only camping was a fee for your spot.