Date: 2015
Location: Fort McMurray
Profile: Ann Dort-MacLean has fought for improvements for the unemployed, women, Aboriginal people, temporary foreign workers, and the environment since she and her family moved to Fort McMurray in 1978. One of many Maritime families who moved to McMurray about that time, her husband found work at Syncrude, and the couple and their two sons settled in McMurray. Dort-MacLean earned a Masters in English before arriving in Alberta. During the early 1980s recession, she was hired as a service provider and advocate for the unemployed at the Alberta Federation of Labour’s local unemployment action centre. She took the initiative to create a community coalition to establish the Fort McMurray Food Bank. The McMurray Independent Oil Workers, now part of Unifor, provided the food bank venue. She later became executive director for Big Sisters, eventually renamed Girls Inc. of Northern Alberta. The organization provides female mentoring for young girls without an adult female member in their lives. Dort-Maclean’s interview outlines projects that Girls Inc. has undertaken both in McMurray and with Indigenous communities. She also discusses her efforts to reduce new energy projects because of the cumulative environmental effect on local communities. Dort-Maclean has been an NDP candidate both provincially and federally.
Keywords: Big Sisters; Fort McMurray Food Bank; Girls Inc.; McMurray Independent Oil Workers; New Democratic Party (NDP); Recession, 1980s; Syncrude; Unemployment Action Centre.
Transcript: Download PDF
See also: Alberta Federation of Labour; Temporary Foreign Workers in Alberta; Unifor; Women and Work in Alberta