ATHABASCA – With a few more days to reflect, maybe it has hit her differently, but in the days following the Oct. 18 municipal elections, outgoing Athabasca mayor Colleen Powell was looking forward to some rest following her second retirement from local politics. It probably won’t be that easy for the non-consecutive two-time mayor and long-time councillor to put it all behind her though.
Politics in general has long been a passion for the 76-year-old, Calgary-born, married mother of two who won her first term on Athabasca town council in 1998. And she has never been shy about her more progressive leanings or her involvement as a member and backroom organizer for the New Democratic Party, which has gained her both friends and rivals along the way. It may come as a surprise to many who know her, but young Colleen was once a conservative.
Colleen the Conservative
“When I was younger, the radical people became conservatives because we had Uncle Ernie,” Powell laughed during an Oct. 21 interview, referring to Social Credit premier Ernest Manning, who led the province between 1943-1968.
The now-officially retired mayor reminisced and shared many very interesting anecdotes with the Advocate over several conversations between Oct. 20-22, some of them fit for print, some not so much, about the path that has led her to this point, and some of the people she has rubbed shoulders with over the years.
In the mid-60s Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker was riding a wave of popularity, and she was working on a teaching degree. She remembers attending a young conservatives conference where she was able to meet the man in the flesh.
“Diefenbaker was still remarkably popular, a terrible prime minister, but I heard him speak, and it did blow your socks off,” Powell said.
In university, Powell said she had a hard time relating to New Democrats on campus “who are telling me how poor I am … I’m not poor, don’t patronize me.” Her father worked as a switchman for Canadian Pacific Railroad and her mother sold shoes part-time — about as blue-collar as you can get, but certainly not poor.
“The Liberals never appealed to me, and the Conservatives never did that, the young ones at the university,” she recalled. “You know I was probably the only working-class person they had. Actually, there were very few of us at the university anyway those days, but that's why I never went left because I thought they had a completely skewed vision of who working people were.”
Then, she went to Africa, and her outlook on life, society and politics underwent a dramatic shift.
All my changes were there
Travelling to Ghana with the Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO) in 1967 to teach prospective teachers was a definitive turning point in Powell’s life. That was well over 50 years ago, and she was only there for two years, but she speaks of it in vivid detail, as if it were yesterday.
“I met people there, with the same amount of education as me and I'm thinking, ‘I don't know anything. I'm feeling so stupid around all these people.’ That's why I went to grad school,” she said.
But seeing the economic and social circumstances of the people of West Africa made her take a second look, and the longer she stayed the more racial inequality she saw, which led to economic inequality and a society made up of a majority of citizens that were considered somehow less than, with no running water or electricity or educational facilities in most places.
“It is life altering, you're going there and seeing not only people dressed in funny ways and eating really weird food, but their minds are different,” Powell said.
By the time she came back from Ghana, her mind had changed as well and she was ready for grad school, but realizing her education degree was severely lacking, she stacked up on political science courses instead and soon earned her master's degree in the subject.
From there, her and husband Rick had two children and two careers to focus on, which soon brought them to Athabasca.
Don’t call it a comeback
The Powell family came to Athabasca in the mid-80s when Rick took a job at the recently re-located Athabasca University. That institution has played a huge role in the lives of the Powells since that point with Rick finishing his career there as a researcher and Colleen heading the faculty association — now the Athabasca University Faculty Association — a position son David now holds.
Later, she also taught social sciences, humanities and French via distance education for the school division when it was still under the purview of Athabasca County.
Upon moving to the area, she became president of the local NDP constituency association and helped Léo Piquette become MLA in 1986. She worked on numerous NDP campaigns until about 10 years ago and has played a role in most of the local campaigns since then.
Powell was first elected to town council in the 1998 election and served two more terms as councillor before winning the mayor’s chair for the first time in 2007 but lost to Roger Morrill in 2010. She returned as a councillor in a by-election midway through that term to replace a departing councillor, and took her first retirement from local politics at the end of the term in 2013.
“After we had opened the water treatment plant, we were told by the province that we have to do full cost recovery. I said your water rates are going to go up, we're at the wet end of the dry province, and I lost to Roger,” she recalled, adding she knew her support was falling halfway through the campaign and saw the writing on the wall.
By the end of a very tumultuous four-year term for the council led by Morrill, which ended with the release of a municipal inspection report just weeks before the municipal election that identified numerous shortcomings, Powell was being approached to run again. A common theme of the report was a call for “improved council leadership and willingness to work together for the overall good of the community.”
Different factions in town had been working to persuade both herself and fellow former mayor Lionel Cherniwchan to consider running again to help put the municipality back on the straight and narrow, but when Cherniwchan declined, Powell came in at the last minute and defeated the incumbent Morrill and two other hopefuls in a four-way race.
Personal politics aside, Powell said she has always fulfilled her role on council with what she saw as the best intentions. Her colleagues didn’t always agree with her, but such is the life of a political progressive in Alberta. When you’re talking about local infrastructure and services, and trying to provide responsible management of a community, the partisan aspect of one’s politics often takes a back seat.
The Legacy Question
For the last four years, Powell has led Athabasca town council knowing she would not be seeking re-election in 2021.
During her last council meeting Oct. 5, Powell thanked the councillors around the table for working together to get through a tough period in the town’s history. She also spoke of some of the projects and other accomplishments they achieved in the four years.
Meeting the 29 recommendations of the municipal inspection report; repairing the Riverfront stage and Muskeg Creek bridges; 49th Street water and sewer upgrades; the Jubilee booster looping project; the Brick School; the new doctor recruitment committee; the completion of the intermunicipal development plan with Athabasca County; and the work council has done to introduce green initiatives to name just a few as there are too many to name.
Asked Oct. 20 about the concept of legacy, she said she wasn’t into it, but asked again on Oct. 22 as she looked upon the west wall of council chambers where the pictures of former mayors and councillors now reside, she admitted it is gratifying to know that someday, some future outgoing mayor will be gazing upon her own picture and telling people about the era of Colleen Powell and her impact on the community she came to call home.
