Thanks for the link. Nice to think about enjoying summer waves at Long Beach on a day like today.
I was told by Parks Canada staff that passes purchased in 2016 will roll over into 2018 automatically (to honour the "free" admission in 2017). Example: if your pass is dated to expire in June 2017 it will be valid until June 2018. As the language on their website does not say this, I ordered one the "free" ones to be safe (seems like a waste).
If you are planning to continue to use your 2016 pass until 2018, it would likely be best to confirm this with staff on site before receiving a ticket from the Concierge Security staff, as they are pretty vigilant about issuing parking tickets from what I have seen.