{"id":12067,"date":"2024-10-18T16:08:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T21:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/?p=12067"},"modified":"2024-10-18T17:30:40","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T22:30:40","slug":"parks-canada-believes-its-gone-above-and-beyond-in-jasper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/?p=12067","title":{"rendered":"Parks Canada believes it\u2019s gone above and beyond in Jasper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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While the municipality, the province and federal government bicker over the handling of the fire, over 250 Parks Canada staff have returned to ground zero with asbestos signs posted on fences with uncovered potential toxins including heavy metals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I arrived at Jasper the morning of September 26th<\/sup> with my National Executive Vice President at about 10 a.m. local time. Within two hours of us setting foot in town, the National Executive Vice President was on the ground suffering a major asthma attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our members don\u2019t have the results of the particulates tests from the clean-up nor is the air quality testing for particulates of asbestos or heavy metals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the health and safety of my members are the primary reason for our visit to Jasper. Parks Canada is evicting a member of UNE whose home was one of the few to survive to give it to a manager. The Park Superintendent lives alone in a four-bedroom house unaffected by the fires while members are put up in accommodations with no kitchen and are cut off from their per diems. Parks\u2019 Superintendent has not allowed a lot of firefighting staff to go off on 699 leave, including those that found their young colleague deceased in the fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Allow me to paint you an accurate picture of the life of our members in Jasper. The member works, live and eats within the park. Most of our members make under $65,000 a year. Now that might sound reasonable but remember that the prices of everything in Jasper are high because the town is built on tourism alone. Eating, gas and groceries are often five times the average for a town of similar size. Their housing comes to them either through an employer much like the old mining company, at unreasonably high amount due to the location or at an extremely long commute. They don\u2019t own the land and if they don\u2019t do as their employer says, they could be out of a job and a home. You can\u2019t be homeless in Jasper, or they put you on a bus out of town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I, however, can\u2019t avoid sounding the public safety alarm as the implications of what the National Executive Vice President experienced and the lack of properly scoped toxins and particulate testing mean that not only are my members being exposed but also those that visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether this is happening due to a decision to get Jasper up and running without the hindrance of clean up faced in Fort Mac with the fire retardant or to ensure the cash cow to the province is back in business. I do not wish to know a decade or so from now that my members and their families were unnecessarily exposed for political and capitalist ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please support your union siblings by demanding answers from them.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alisha Kang,
National President,
Union of National Employees<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the municipality, the province and federal government bicker over the handling of the fire, over 250 Parks Canada staff have returned to ground zero with asbestos signs posted on fences with uncovered potential toxins including heavy metals. I arrived at Jasper the morning of September 26th with my National Executive Vice President at about … <\/p>\n

>> “Parks Canada believes it\u2019s gone above and beyond in Jasper”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12067"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12109,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12067\/revisions\/12109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}