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Cathy Walker was born in Vancouver, BC in 1949 and grew up in Burnaby. Her father was a member of the Machinists Union which influenced her perspective while growing up. She attended Simon Fraser University (SFU) during a time of fervent political activism by students and became involved in the Young New Democrats (YND) during the same time. She left school to pursue a working-class experience and began working at Cascade Electronics where she quickly became involved with the union, then the…

Colin Gabelmann came to Canada as a child in 1947 from London, England. He was influenced by his family's ties to social democratic parties in Europe which continued in Canada where they were strong supporters of the CCF (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation) and the NDP (New Democratic Party). Gablemann became politically active at a young age, living in the Okanagan and moving to Vancouver to attend UBC. His involvement in the UBC NDP Club introduced him to the BC labour movement. After…

In this far-reaching conversation, Lee Loftus discusses his experiences as a third-generation insulator, and union member and executive with the Heat and Frost Insulators Union Local 118 in British Columbia.
Throughout his career, he was involved in negotiating pension plans, working to make regulatory changes to improve union contracts, coping with the impacts of B.C. Labour Code changes in the mid-1980s, and helping to create the Canadian Federation of Labour – then later rejoining…