Women are playing an increasing role in British Columbia's resource sector and their united voices will make a difference to the future of the industry, says the organizer of an upcoming conference.

"I'm a firm believer that when women get together there is just a ready exchange of ideas," says Barbara Walker, a community activist and chair of the inaugural Women of Resource Communities Conference to be held this week in Parksville on Vancouver Island. "I know it's not politically correct, but we are the more natural communicators."

Walker is also co-founder of First Dollar, an advocacy group that lobbies for the rights of resource communities and workers across the province. She says the goal of this week's conference, to be held at the Tigh-Na-Mara Resort, Spa and Conference Centre, is to allow for an exchange of information about what is happening in the industry.

Walker worked for years in her family's small welding business, one that she describes as totally resource-dependent. She supported the company by looking after the bookkeeping and accounting. "I was really lucky," she says. When her youngest child graduated from school, her husband invited her to take some time to do something she would really enjoy. Many people would have used this opportunity to put their feet up, but Walker had other ideas.

Glenn Olsen, Business Edge
Leanne Brunt (left) and Barb Walker founded First Dollar Alliance, a group that supports B.C.'s many resource industries.

"Eleven years ago I was involved in the march to Victoria to stand up on behalf of resources," she recalls, as part of the Pacific Resource Education Society. So a year ago when the opportunity arose, Walker partnered with her friend Leanne Brunt to form First Dollar Alliance, a group that now advocates for B.C.'s resource industries - including forestry, aquaculture and mining - and to challenge what they call "misinformation" about these sectors by other groups, including environmentalists.

"Our goal is to reach out to the public to show the importance of our resource communities to everyone in B.C.," says Brunt.

Walker says the group was started "because we felt the need to support the resource community as a whole against the onslaught of misinformation and downright lies that are told about our community."

The conference, she adds, is a natural extension of that focus.

"The most important people we want at the conference are the women, the actual workers who are labouring in the resource industry," says Walker.

"Women realize they can drive a truck as good as a man and traditionally male jobs pay more. As companies need more people, they are looking more toward qualified women."

According to Statistics Canada, women's participation in B.C.'s resource industries has continued to grow at a steady rate. By 2001, women's participation in the construction trades had increased by 13 per cent over the previous decade and female transport and equipment operators increased their presence by 18 per cent over the same period.

With the Women of Resource Communities Conference, Walker is hoping to attract women from all sectors of the resource economy - agriculture, energy, fisheries, forestry, aquaculture, mining, and oil and gas. She is also looking for delegates from the many services that depend on primary industries, including government, hospitality, engineering and transportation.

Conference attendees will listen to speakers and panels discuss a range of issues relevant to members of B.C.'s resource economy, including leadership development, communication and an exploration of the common ground shared by workers in resource-based industries.

Speakers will include representatives from the salmon farming industry, greenhouse sector and the Coast Forest Products Association. Teresa Ryan, executive director of the Tsimshian Nation, is the featured luncheon speaker.

"We're at the edge of a new opportunity in this (resource) sector," says Pat Allan, CEO of Comox-based Tesseract Consulting Ltd. "We can't keep on doing things the way we have done in the past. Rather than depleting and moving on, we have to shed the old ways and find a new way to go about it."

Allan is slated to speak at the conference, which has a theme of Sharing Common Ground, on the subject of communication as negotiation. "Collaboration is the key to these major changes in the resource sector," she says. "It's about using the resources we have in a way that is sustainable in the long term."

Allan says that the majority of her clients are women, and she has seen how they can bring their unique strengths to the resource industry.

"Women don't often follow the same straight and narrow career path as men, and they come from a wide variety of situations. That lets them see how to link things," she says. "Many people don't stop to think about the fact that any time you say something to someone, it tells something about the relationship you have with them. So when it comes to things like collaboration and finding ways to work together, those unspoken messages are going to have a lot of impact."

Adds Walker: "The opportunity to put a bunch of female resource workers together with the leaders in the industry - it's just a natural fit."

Web watch: www.firstdollar.ca (Karen Dyer can be reached at karen@businessedge.ca)