Achi news desk-
Provincial tourism workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees local 1190 spoke out Thursday, saying some provincial parks are cutting back on their employee hours.
Mike Bravener says he has been told he will be working 31.5 hours a week, compared to 36 hours last summer. Bravener is an actor and performer at Kings Landing’s living museum – New Brunswick’s provincial attraction celebrating its fiftieth season.
“You see the nice ads, you see the nice promotions and yet when you walk into the park it almost looks like it’s a bit of a ghost town,” he said.
The union represents 550 tourism workers, most working casually.
The president of local 1190, Jonathan Guimond, said that some parks will not be open for as long, or there will be fewer people working within them when they are open.
The union points the finger at the tourism minister and her deputy for a trip the duo took to Europe that cost taxpayers more than $22,000. They wonder why money was budgeted for that trip.
“They are a bit surprised that they need to suffer reductions and the parks of the quality they provide suffer reductions when money is available for things like that,” said Guimond.
Tourism Minister Tammy Scott-Wallace said only two locations – Kings Landing and the Village historique acadien – will see a reduction in some areas, but that is not happening to all parks across the province.
He also said that the European trip he took was valuable for building relationships in key areas such as France and the United Kingdom.
“It is unfortunate for me that the people who work in our parks and attractions would feel that any time the minister went across the province or outside the province or the outside the country, to promote tourism and to bring new visitors to the province, they don’t see the value in that,” he told reporters.
The union says the cost of that trip would have been equivalent to hundreds of worker hours in the parks.
For Bravener, he cares about maintaining the magic that can be found in Kings Landing.
“I think people come and they go, ‘Oh, this isn’t open. Oh, I thought this was happening today. Where is the theatre? There is no theatre. Where are the dances in the fields? How come there’s no barn dance anymore?’” he said. “It’s that kind of impact.”
