Parks Canada FINALLY houses Jasper residents after months of delays

Parks Canada pledged 100 duplex trailers and 120 dorm rooms by February 26, after hundreds of locals rallied for immediate support. Premier Danielle Smith says support from the province has been rejected for months.

After considerable back and forth, hundreds of Jasper, Alberta residents will finally receive housing — months after a wildfire left them homeless.

Up to this point, Premier Danielle Smith blamed Parks Canada and the municipality of Jasper for the delays. “If they don’t want [our help], there’s nothing we can do — it’s not our jurisdiction.”

The province allocated $112 million to build 250 single-family homes, though federal legislation and matters of jurisdiction held them up for months.

Parks Canada pledged 100 duplex trailers and 120 dorm rooms by February 26, after hundreds of locals rallied for immediate support. The duplex trailers would be for families, while the dorm rooms would house individuals and couples.

Details of the units were posted in a document to the municipality's website last week.

“We are bringing interim housing. We’re bringing as much as we’re able to,” Michael Fark, the municipality's director of recovery, told Jasper’s committee-of-the-whole.

He admits the units will not be able to house everyone. “We’re trying to find other creative solutions to allow that.” 

Households of two people can rent a fully furnished duplex trailer for $1,000 per month, utilities and internet included. Three or more people will pay $1,500 to rent both sides.

Also available are fully furnished dorm-style units, for $500 per month. They will be set up similarly to a work camp site, according to the Parks Canada documents.

The municipality of Jasper, however, claims more higher-density housing options would solve the local housing crisis, facing pushback from the province, who says single units could be built in a few months instead of a couple years.

“We don’t care whether we build single-family or multi-family [units] except for the fact that we can build the single-family a lot faster,” Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver told CBC News.

“Since it’s an emergency, we believe that matters,” he said.

The municipality of Jasper cannot build outside the town boundaries within Jasper National Park, owing to current regulations. 

“They … are not prepared to clear any additional space for us to put those [250] houses up,” said Premier Smith during a recent conversation with concerned Albertans.

Construction has yet to begin, though only 60 of the promised 250 homes could be built on the land already available.

Alterations to that boundary require a Cabinet bill, though that could take several months, with Parliament prorogued.

In a prior statement to CBC News, a Parks Canada spokesperson said “changing the town boundary will not result in providing people places to live now.” 

“As with any municipality the delivery of municipal infrastructure outside the town boundary would require a long period to put in place,” it reads.

“We [have] homes ready to be deployed, but Jasper rejected us,” claimed the premier. “The municipality said they didn’t want them.”

“We still stand by,” Smith reiterated, “ready to deploy these 250 homes.”

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Alex Dhaliwal

Calgary Based Journalist

Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.

COMMENTS

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  • Bernhard Jatzeck
    commented 2025-02-04 20:45:42 -0500
    I believe it was Milton Friedman who said that if the Sahara Desert was run by the government, it would soon run out of sand. The handling of the fire’s aftermath seems to fit into that category.
  • Bruce Atchison
    commented 2025-02-04 20:03:09 -0500
    Make Jasper and Banf provincial parks. That would get those hateful Laurentian elitists out of the decision-making process.