diff --git a/api/jobs.go b/api/jobs.go
index 907f548c434..54344bd357c 100644
--- a/api/jobs.go
+++ b/api/jobs.go
@@ -12,7 +12,6 @@ import (
 	"net/url"
 	"sort"
 	"strconv"
-	"strings"
 	"time"
 
 	"github.com/hashicorp/cronexpr"
@@ -324,6 +323,7 @@ func (j *Jobs) Submission(jobID string, version int, q *QueryOptions) (*JobSubmi
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, nil, err
 	}
+
 	return &sub, qm, nil
 }
 
@@ -1061,9 +1061,7 @@ func (js *JobSubmission) Canonicalize() {
 	// characters to preserve them. This way, when the job gets stopped and
 	// restarted in the UI, variable values will be parsed correctly.
 	for k, v := range js.VariableFlags {
-		if strings.Contains(v, "\n") {
-			js.VariableFlags[k] = strings.ReplaceAll(v, "\n", "\\n")
-		}
+		js.VariableFlags[k] = url.QueryEscape(v)
 	}
 }
 
diff --git a/api/jobs_test.go b/api/jobs_test.go
index fa68dcf9ae7..1e22fa80ebf 100644
--- a/api/jobs_test.go
+++ b/api/jobs_test.go
@@ -1503,7 +1503,17 @@ func TestJobs_JobSubmission_Canonicalize(t *testing.T) {
 			VariableFlags: map[string]string{"test": "foo\nbar"},
 		}
 		js.Canonicalize()
-		must.Eq(t, js.VariableFlags["test"], "foo\\nbar")
+
+		must.Eq(t, js.VariableFlags["test"], "foo%0Abar")
+	})
+
+	t.Run("non-alphabetic chars", func(t *testing.T) {
+		js := &JobSubmission{
+			Source:        "abc123",
+			VariableFlags: map[string]string{"test": `"foo": "bar"`},
+		}
+		js.Canonicalize()
+		must.Eq(t, js.VariableFlags["test"], "%22foo%22%3A+%22bar%22")
 	})
 }