Working for Parks Canada this summer was supposed to be Christine Westall’s dream, but a week into her new job the Ontario native is already heading home disappointed by the way she was treated.
The 26-year-old first applied to work for Parks Canada as a visitor services attendant in February. By mid-March she was interviewed for the position and by April she received a confirmation email that she had been selected for the position.
Excited by her future prospects, she informed Ontario Parks that she wouldn’t be returning as a forest firefighter this summer.
“It was my dream to work for Parks,” said Westall. “I took parks and protected areas at school as part of my degree and if you ask anyone that knows me they’ll all say that I’ve always wanted to work for Parks.”
Like many seasonal employees in Jasper, she left Ontario on April 18 to give herself plenty of time to drive across the country for her first day of work, which was scheduled for May 1.
Everything seemed to be fine when she started that Monday, despite the fact that her security clearance still hadn’t been processed, a requirement for all federal employees before they can begin work.
Concerned about the status of her security clearance, she emailed the human resources department three days later to make sure everything was fine.
After not hearing anything she returned to work on May 10 and told her supervisor that things were still up in the air. Looking for answers her supervisor picked up the phone and called human resources on her behalf.
The answer she got back was not what she was expecting.
“She was on the phone for about a half an hour and she comes back in and says, ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but they want you to sign a volunteer form, you’re not an employee and you were not getting paid for last week,’” said Westall.
Taken aback by the news, Westall quickly rushed over to human resources before they closed for the day and was told to go to the RCMP detachment to get new fingerprints taken.
At the RCMP detachment, police told her that it could take two to six weeks to get her clearance.
Unsure what to do, Westall talked with her supervisors who told her to go home for a few days and that they would be in touch.
The following day on May 11, Westall returned to the human resources department, where an employee was extremely apologetic about the whole ordeal, but reiterated it would be a few days before she could return to work.
“I didn’t know when I was going to be back to work. It could have been the next day or could be two to six weeks,” said Westall.
The following day she was told by the human resources department that they were trying to get someone from Ottawa to call her to conduct a prescreening security clearance, but that never materialized.
“By Monday I still didn’t really know what was going on and I still hadn’t got a straight answer as to who messed this up. I was told on May 1 I was fine to work, they kind of just waved it aside and said ‘it’ll come through.’”
By May 15, two weeks into her contract, she still hadn’t heard anything and decided to find out what her rights were and if she could make a grievance with the union or the labour board. The human resources department told her she couldn’t make a grievance because she wasn’t an employee.
“In my mind it was unacceptable that they could mess up so badly,” said Westall. “All it would have taken was for one person to tell me in April that you can’t start work until your clearance comes in, but no one told me anything like that.”
She said the employees in the department told her they were doing everything they could, but nothing seemed to be happening.
“There were just a lot of shrugs and claims that their hands were tied.”
Frustrated, she asked to talk to Pam Clark, the visitor experience manager.
“She was very sorry about the whole thing and I told her that I was getting a little bit fed up because of how poorly they handled everything. No one was giving me a straight answer, no one was taking responsibility at all and I expressed to her I could have kept working at my other job that I loved, that I had a good career path in, but I left it to come here.”
As luck would have it, the following day Westall received a call that her clearance had finally come through and she could begin work almost immediately, but by that time it was already too late, Westall had made up her mind that she didn’t want to work for Parks Canada anymore.
On May 16, the day she signed her contract, she also resigned.
“I crossed my t’s and dotted my i’s and then I asked the HR lady for a piece of paper and immediately resigned from my position,” said Westall. “I’m never going to work for them again. I never felt like I was of value to the organization.”
Parks Canada declined to comment on the specifics of her case because it is a personnel matter.
“Parks Canada does not discuss individual human resources cases. However, we are happy to report a high level of interest from individuals hoping to join Parks Canada for Canada 150 in 2017 and many summer students and new seasonal employees have been successfully hired in Jasper National Park,” wrote Steve Young, a communications officer with Parks Canada.
He confirmed that all federal employees must have appropriate security clearance for their position.
“Parks Canada has put in place measures this year to expedite security clearance procedures for summer students and seasonal employees, like mobile digital finger-printing. These measures have greatly improved the speed of obtaining security clearance for new hires while maintaining the integrity of the security clearance process.”
Westall said Parks Canada has promised to pay her for the seven days she worked and reimburse her for her rent, but she said she has little faith she’ll ever see that money.
Reflecting on the entire ordeal she said there was a lot she wishes she had been aware of before accepting the position, including that it can take six to eight weeks before new employees receives their first pay cheque and the issues surrounding the beleaguered Phoenix payroll system.
“They weren’t very transparent about anything, which made me very frustrated,” Westall said.
While she doesn’t expect to receive a formal apology for the way things were handled, she said she hopes someone will take responsibility so it doesn’t happen again.
“I just want them to treat people with respect,” said Westall. “They kept saying I was a unique circumstance and they are trying to learn from it, but at the same time they don’t treat their employees with respect and that’s one of the main things they go over in training.”
With her car packed up and ready to go on May 18 she said she harboured no ill will towards Jasper itself.
“Everyone I’ve met in the town has been overwhelmingly nice,” said Westall.
“I was treated better by strangers in town than I was by Parks Canada.”
