Editor,
Parks Canada would like to clarify some information in your recent article, Resource conservation hit hardest in local Parks Canada job cuts, News, May 9, 2012.
Parks Canada has made reductions in every region and function as part of the Government’s deficit reduction efforts. Here in Revelstoke, we made every effort to minimize the impact on staff through attrition and adjusting vacant positions.
Out of approximately 127 staff, 14 indeterminate positions are impacted in some way. Of that 14, five employees were accepted for voluntary departure which helped to minimize the number of involuntary departures. Parks Canada will not disclose additional specific details at this time out of respect for the privacy of individual employees.
Our reductions and adjustments impact all functions, including Finance, External Relations, Asset Management, Visitor Experience and Resource Conservation. It is misleading to suggest, as your article did, that one function was harder hit than the others.
To address our financial challenges, Parks Canada is taking steps to more closely align our visitor services and work schedules to our peak seasons. Important resource conservation work, such as science, monitoring and reporting, will continue as before. What will change for some is the season of work. As our field work is conducted primarily during spring, summer and fall, we need to staff accordingly.
Our focus remains clear: we are here to fulfil our core mandate to protect and present our parks. Nothing has changed in this regard.
As we work to meet our mandate, we remain committed to our staff. We are taking great care to ensure impacted employees have the support they need and are compensated fairly according to their collective agreement.
We continue to have a strong, passionate group of staff deeply committed to our mandate on behalf of Canadians. Despite the changes, we maintain a high level of professional capacity to meet our obligation to protect cultural and ecological resources and to provide world-class visitor experiences.
Karen Tierney
Superintendent
Mount Revelstoke and Glacier Field Unit, Parks Canada