Interview with Colin Snell

Colin was born in northern England in 1940. His working-class consciousness developed at an early age. At 16, he apprenticed as a shipwright and during his apprenticeship participated in a short strike. Colin's father died in the war, but his stepfather was a miner and Colin played soccer with a colliery team.

Colin learned to ski in Scotland, and it was his love of skiing and his friendship with a fellow skier that led him to Canada. He wanted to ski in Canada and his friend Les, who had already moved to Vancouver, offered to help him get settled. Colin first worked in the shipbuilding industry in North Vancouver and then switched to carpentry and joined the Carpenters Union. His friend Les McDonald was a well-known leader of the IBEW and a Communist Party activist. While Colin didn't belong to the party, he believed it played a positive role in the labour movement.

As a leader of the Vancouver Local of the Carpenters Union and an activist with the Building Trades Council and the Vancouver and District Labour Council, Colin was involved in several pivotal moments for the BC labour movement, including the 1966 wildcat strike at Lenkurt Electric. And after four carpenters were killed in a construction accident while building the Bentall Centre in downtown Vancouver, Colin sat on the coroner's inquest jury. The jury's recommendations helped improve health and safety regulations. In the interview, Colin also talked about the fight by BC construction unions against non-union work.