We run hotels, restaurants, shops, and businesses across northern Alberta. For years we've been competing against work camps that pay no hotel tax, sit on Crown land for a fraction of what we pay, and answer to almost none of the rules we do. This site lays out the issue, the numbers, and our letter to the province. Businesses can sign on to the letter here.
The tourism levy every Alberta hotel collects on each room. Camps are exempt. Budget 2026 raised it from 4%.
Government of Alberta, 2026Income earned in Alberta by fly-in fly-out workers and taken home to Atlantic Canada in one year.
Conference Board of CanadaPeople in Wood Buffalo living in camps and temporary rooms right now.
RMWB Census, 2025Fort McMurray hotel occupancy in 2024, the lowest Alberta market tracked. Calgary ran 67%.
CBRE Hotels via AHLA, 2024New homes Wood Buffalo projects the region will need by 2031.
RMWB Housing Assessment, 2026The shadow population at the peak of the last boom, in 2015. No provincial rule currently separates a project camp from a permanent open camp.
RMWB Census, 2015What camps were built for and what they turned into.
Read the issueNo new laws, no new programs. The province already has every tool it needs.
Read the askRead the coalition letter to the Government of Alberta and sign on if you want to.
Read and sign the letterWork camps were supposed to be simple. Put up housing near a remote job site, run it for the length of the job, take it down when the work ends. Nobody here has a problem with that. The problem is the camps that never came down. They run year round now, right beside our communities, open to any paying guest, and they carry almost none of the obligations we carry.
A local hotel and an open camp can sit ten minutes apart and take the same guests. One of them pays full freight. The other doesn't.
No provincial rule separates a project camp from a permanent open camp. Creating that distinction is what the coalition letter asks the province to do.
Roads, hospitals, and services built for a population that is far bigger on paper than on the tax rolls.
A small community where the local hotel competes with camps down the highway running under a different set of rules.
Surrounded by camps, and the community absorbs the strain while seeing the least of the benefit.
Hard to build a housing market when most of the workforce sleeps in camp and leaves on days off.
Plenty of resource activity nearby. Very little of the payroll ever lands on main street.
Camp work means weeks away from home at a stretch, living in a small room and working long shifts between rotations.
Studies of fly-in fly-out workers report higher rates of several mental health problems. The national MMIWG inquiry also documented effects on neighbouring communities, including Indigenous communities. Sources are on the In the News page.
Many coalition members work for the resource sector or depend on it. Camps make sense on remote builds and major shutdowns where there is nowhere else to stay. The issue is the difference in rules between camps and local businesses operating in the same markets.
These numbers cover our region. The hotel figures come from CBRE Hotels, the firm that tracks hotel performance for Alberta's hotel industry. The camp figure comes from the municipal census.
Fort McMurray hotel occupancy through July 2024 next to Calgary's over the same stretch. Edmonton ran 61%. Fort McMurray came in last of every Alberta market CBRE tracked, down from 49% the year before.
SourceRoughly what the average Fort McMurray home has lost since the 2014 peak. Detached homes that sold for over $700,000 now average around $500,000, a decade later, while Calgary and Edmonton set record highs.
SourceAlberta's rate of missed credit payments in mid-2025, well above the national average and climbing. Equifax named Fort McMurray as one of the cities where missed payments rose.
SourcePeople counted living in camps and temporary accommodation in Wood Buffalo in 2025.
SourceIf your business operates in this market, you can include your own numbers and experience in your letter.
The coalition is not asking government to remove camps where they are needed. Remote builds and major shutdowns need them. The requests below use authority the province already holds.
Forestry and Parks can put conditions on Crown land tenure renewals and new approvals under the Land Act and Forest Act.
Tourism and Sport can close the tax exemptions that let camps undercut every hotel in the region.
And Municipal Affairs can look at how permanent camps are assessed under the MGA, so the towns hosting them actually see some of the revenue.
Keep camps for the two things they were built for: remote construction with nowhere else to stay, and big shutdowns that need extra beds for a while.
Give every approval an end date tied to the project. When the job ends, the camp comes down.
And give the camps already sitting in established markets a fair, phased path out.
News coverage and research on work camps in this region, going back to 2018. Each item links to its source.
More than 21,000 transient workers still live in camps in the oilsands region.
Coverage of a workforce change at one producer noted the scale of the camp population: the 2025 census counted over 21,000 transient workers in camps across the region. The change in question, one company requiring some contractors to hire locally, covers about 200 positions.
Read the storyThe region needs up to 6,470 new homes by 2031.
Wood Buffalo's Housing Needs Assessment found the region growing for the first time in a decade and projected demand for 4,050 to 6,470 new homes by 2031.
Read the release"A hidden mental-health crisis that experts say is likely to get worse."
The Globe reported on mental health among camp-based oil sands workers and warned the coming construction wave is expected to increase the pressure.
Read the story$7 million in grants to keep downtown businesses going since 2020.
The municipality's Downtown Revitalization Incentives Program has funded more than 200 downtown Fort McMurray projects since 2020, with 58 more underway. The program pays businesses and property owners to upgrade and stay in the core.
Read the storyMissed payments rose in Fort McMurray, Edmonton, and Calgary.
Equifax reported Alberta's delinquency rate at 1.98 per cent in the second quarter of 2025, above the national average and up from the year before, and named Fort McMurray among the Alberta cities where missed payments increased.
Read the releaseFort McMurray hotel occupancy: 46 per cent. Last in Alberta.
CBRE's accommodation outlook for the Alberta Hotel and Lodging Association put Fort McMurray hotel occupancy at 46 per cent through July 2024, down from 49 per cent the year before and the lowest of any Alberta market in the report. Calgary ran 67 per cent over the same period.
Read the reportCamps are "implicated in higher rates of violence against Indigenous women."
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls tied work camps to increased violence and addiction in the communities around them. A parliamentary committee told Ottawa to hold the sector accountable.
Read the storyHigher anxiety, depression, burnout, and psychological distress among FIFO workers.
The Mobile Work and Mental Health study of oil sands FIFO workers found mobile workers do significantly worse than the general population on core mental health measures.
Read the study"This region is suffering."
During the camp moratorium debate, Mayor Don Scott argued that moving workers out of isolated camps and into town would lower the vacancy rate, restore home values, and help local small businesses. Industry and camp managers filled the council chamber to oppose the motion.
Read the storyCamps became one of the most divisive issues in Fort McMurray.
Wood Buffalo's mayor argued that thousands of fly-in fly-out workers were contributing little to a struggling local economy while homes in town sat empty.
Read the story61 camps. More than 27,000 people. Within 75 km of one community.
Wood Buffalo council voted unanimously in 2019 for a moratorium on camp renewals near Fort McMurray.
Read the storyA shadow population of 36,678 in a region of 111,687.
The municipal census counted nearly a third of the region living in camps, hotels, or other temporary rooms. The mayor said it plainly: move workers into town and vacancies drop, home values recover, and small businesses get customers.
Read the story"We want more people living in this region and calling this home."
Then-Mayor Don Scott argued that if workers lived in the region, the population, local businesses, and housing market would recover together.
Read the story"Their tax dollars are going back to wherever home is."
U of A researchers interviewing Fort McMurray residents heard the same thing over and over: the FIFO workforce uses local services and infrastructure, and the wages and taxes leave with every rotation.
Read the storyThis is the letter going to the Government of Alberta. Businesses can sign on below or submit their own.
We, the undersigned businesses and employers of northern Alberta, are writing to ask the government to correct a regulatory imbalance that is steadily weakening the communities we serve.
Open work camps were built to house workers near remote project sites for the length of a defined job, and to come down once the work was done. Many now operate year round as permanent accommodation in established markets, in communities like Fort McMurray, Anzac, Fort McKay, Conklin, and Lac La Biche, competing directly against local hotels, restaurants, retailers, and contractors while paying no hotel or tourism tax, accessing Crown land well below market value, and sitting outside the rules the rest of us must meet. Those advantages work as a public subsidy in all but name, and no provincial policy even distinguishes a genuine project camp from a permanent open camp.
The fly in fly out model compounds the damage. When a workforce flies in, lives in camp, and flies home, its wages leave with it, draining money out of our local economies year after year. A workforce that never settles also holds back local housing, makes it harder to hire and keep employees, and denies our communities the permanent population that local services and long-term investment depend on.
We are not asking the government to end workforce mobility or to remove workforce housing where it is genuinely needed. Camps belong on major remote construction and significant shutdowns where no local accommodation exists, and that case is not in question. We are asking for a level playing field: end the open status of work camps, which the Ministry of Forestry and Parks can set as a condition of Crown land tenure under the Land Act and Forest Act, and close the tax exemptions the Ministry of Tourism and Sport oversees. Both are achievable under authority the province already holds, with no new legislation.
We ask only for the same fair treatment any established market in this province would expect. We respectfully urge the government to act, and we welcome the opportunity to work toward a solution that restores fairness while keeping housing where it is genuinely needed.
Sincerely, the undersigned businesses of northern Alberta
Sign on to the letter above or write your own. Submissions go into the coalition record presented to government. Naming your business publicly is optional.
You can also email your MLA directly. Pick your community and a pre-written email to the right member will open. Edit it however you like before sending.
These are the questions we get asked the most. If yours isn't here, put it in your letter. We read every one.
No. A lot of our members work for the resource sector or depend on it. Resource development built the north and nothing we're asking for slows down a single project. Our complaint is narrow: one type of accommodation business gets to operate tax exempt on cheap Crown land, in direct competition with local businesses that do not have those exemptions.
No. Camps serve two purposes the coalition is not challenging: remote builds with no local accommodation, and major shutdowns that need temporary extra capacity.
What we oppose is camps that got approved as temporary and then just stayed. Running year round, taking any paying guest, right beside towns that already have hotels and restaurants ready for that business.
Two things, and the province can do both right now without passing anything new. First, end the camps' open status. Forestry and Parks can make that a condition of Crown land tenure under the Land Act and Forest Act. Second, close the tax exemptions. Every hotel now collects a 6 per cent tourism levy. Camps are exempt, and Budget 2026 widened that gap.
Longer term, we want camps put back to their original purpose. Every approval gets an end date tied to a project or shutdown, and the camps already sitting in established markets get a fair, phased way out.
No. There's no new legislation, no new program, and no new spending in what we're asking for. If anything the money runs the other way. Camps that pay no tourism levy today would start paying it, and the towns hosting them would finally collect fair assessment on facilities that have been operating in their backyards for years.
Research on fly-in fly-out work consistently reports higher rates of anxiety, depression, burnout, and substance use among camp workers. A national inquiry also linked camps to increased violence and social pressure in neighbouring communities, including Indigenous communities.
Wood Buffalo's permanent population is up 11 per cent since 2021, the first sustained growth in a decade.
Because the gap is getting wider and the next boom is coming. Budget 2026 raised the tourism levy to 6 per cent for every hotel while camps stay exempt. At the peak of the last boom the shadow population hit 43,084, and there's still no rule anywhere in Alberta separating a real project camp from a permanent one. A new wave of megaprojects is being pushed nationally right now. A Work Camp Restriction Area already exists around Fort McMurray, where new long-term camp applications are not accepted. The coalition's position is that the remaining rules should be updated before the next construction cycle.
Business owners and employers across northern Alberta. Hotels, restaurants, shops, contractors, and service companies in and around Fort McMurray, Anzac, Fort McKay, Conklin, and Lac La Biche.
Only with your consent. There is a checkbox on the form. Left unchecked, your support is counted in coalition totals but your name and business are not published or shared.