As local officials shore up millions of dollars worth of resources to help the community recover from the July 24 wildfire, a small team of advocates has been ensuring hundreds of workers in Jasper don’t slip through the cracks 

On July 22, when the community was evacuated due to the imminent threat of the Jasper Wildfire Complex, Jasper Employment and Education Centre (JEEC) Executive Director Heidi Veluw was on vacation, at a campground on Lake Wabamun. 

When Veluw heard about the emergency, she called her colleague, Namneet Singh. Veluw encouraged Singh, who had no friends or family in a neighbouring community to take him in, to join her at the campground. 

Singh wasn’t travelling alone. He was with five other new Canadians, all of whom had been living in Jasper with temporary foreign worker visas. Like so many who were forced to flee their homes that night, they had no place else to go.

“We grabbed our passports and our work permits and just left,” Singh recalled.

The group was safe, but they couldn’t stay at the campground. Besides, Veluw’s office had work to do; her vacation was over. Veluw knew that, like these five young people who were suddenly without homes or jobs in Jasper to return to, there would be hundreds of workers looking for help.

“These were a bunch of cold, confused kids,” she said. “Some of them were not well.”

After a restless sleep, Veluw and her fellow evacuees piled into two cars and made their way to Edmonton. There, at the Coast Plaza Hotel, they rented rooms and plugged in their computers. She and Singh put up a sign in the lobby: “If you need help, we’re here,” it read.

“I knew they’d find us,” Veluw said. 

They did. By the dozen, Jasper’s displaced temporary foreign workers—some staying at the Coast, some staying at other hotels in Edmonton and surrounding areas—tracked down JEEC’s mobile office. Word travels fast in local diasporas.

Suddenly, JEEC was intaking 150 people per day—helping some obtain evacuation relief payments from the province and the Red Cross, setting others up with Employment Insurance, and helping many extend their hotel stays. With help from JEEC volunteers, Veluw opened up a second intake office in a Calgary Sandman hotel, where more Jasper workers were languishing.

But JEEC wasn’t just servicing employment needs—Veluw used her vast networks in Alberta to round up food, clothing and other essentials for those who suddenly had nothing. Friends of Veluw’s in Edmonton were dropping off socks, sweatshirts, coffee and water.

The Jasper Hospitality Fund—a fundraising portal created by a grassroots collective of Edmonton hospitality entrepreneurs—organized food drop-offs. The All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral gave them space to work, and in Calgary, JEEC got support with the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society. Sometimes, while in administrative limbo, people needed help simply finding things to do that didn’t involve going to work—a foreign concept for many foreign workers.

“These people do not take holidays,” Veluw said. 

The biggest hurdle for many temporary foreign workers evacuated from Jasper was that their employment was tied to one single employer in Jasper—a condition of their work visa. That is a familiar lament for many newcomers to Jasper, who accept the employment restrictions because of the opportunities that landing a job—any job—in Canada affords them. But what happens when the employer they’re beholden to is inoperable, burned down, or simply not communicating with their staff?

Very soon after taking stock of the emergency situation, Veluw could see that Jasper was no longer a viable option for many of the workers she was helping. There was simply nothing for them to come back to. 

What these people needed was permission to work somewhere else, she said. They needed to cut ties with their employers, and open up their work visas to other options. They needed to move on.

“The biggest thing we could do for people was to help them see what they could control right now,” Veluw said. “If we could help them open up their work permit, we could put more things in their control.”

So JEEC got to work. With critical assistance from Immigration Canada, which made exceptions for Jasper TFWs whose employment situations were no longer tenable, Veluw and Singh—along with a handful of volunteers—helped more than 300 people apply for, and obtain, open work permits. Most people wanted to stay in Alberta, but some were happy to take jobs elsewhere.

“Jasper was never their forever home,” Veluw said. “Nobody comes here because they want to be a housekeeper. This is just their pathway in.”

Thanks to JEEC, those workers’ pathways—which had been blocked by the economic and social upheaval following the devastating Jasper wildfire—have been opened up again. 

“We’re helping people make plans. And as we’ve seen, sometimes you have to make two plans. Life is changing rapidly.”

Ten weeks after wildfire changed Jasper forever, JEEC is still helping dozens of clients every day. The rush on open work permits has subsided—those workers have indeed moved on. But there are still acute challenges in Jasper around employment and education for many workers and learners. Although the economy is badly wounded and uncertainty shrouds the upcoming winter season, Veluw knows Jasper will build itself back up. 

As it does, however, Veluw is adamant that local officials, employers and employees learn from the light that the wildfire disaster has shone on the community—for better and for worse. 

Were it not for the efforts of a small group of people working outside of the normal parameters and mandates of their small office, hundreds of temporary foreign workers would have indeed “fallen through the cracks.” 

“We have to learn from this,” Veluw said. “We all have to have a larger conversation.” 

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com