Date: 2023
Location: Fort McMurray
Profile: Lindsay Poll is a Métis WestJet flight attendant who serves on the National Indigenous Council of CUPE. Her mother’s parents fled Nazi-occupied Holland to Canada. Her father comes from Michel First Nation, who were tricked out of their land. Scattered across Alberta, many became ‘ditch people.’ Poll’s social conscience was inspired by her social worker mother and her teacher father whose students included many Indigenous youth. She gradually gained an Indigenous sense of her relationship to the Creator and nature, a perspective she contrasts with dominant colonial ideology. As a front-line worker on an airline, attending to passenger safety and needs, Poll has reported human trafficking and elder abuse. She also learned about the dark side of international adoptions. Her adoption of five special needs children deepened her understanding of how separating Indigenous children from parents and community traumatizes them. She brings that understanding to her union work. While her experiences as a flight attendant are mostly positive, racism remains a problem in her workplace. She describes union gains that respond to Indigenous worker needs, in particular those reflecting their cultural view of family. Poll continues attempting to decolonize union structures.
Keywords: Adoption; Colonial ideology; Decolonization and unions; Flight attendant; Indigenous beliefs; International adoption crimes; Métis; Michel First Nation; National Indigenous Council; West Jet.
Transcript: Download PDF
See also: Canadian Union of Public Employees; Indigenous Labour in Alberta; Systemic Racism in Alberta; Women and Work in Alberta