The Bulldozer rests.
MaryAnne Arcand died Monday at the age of 59, robbing Prince George of one of its most formidable leaders in the prime of her life.
The "Bulldozer" nickname was always a little harsh. She was a bulldozer in that she never stopped working and there was no obstacle she couldn't seem to overcome but she didn't bulldoze people. She simply wouldn't take no for an answer and kept going until she got the yes that put her one step closer to the results she wanted.
What she wanted was to make life better for people who were at risk.
She earned her Bulldozer nickname in the early 1990s. After raising four kids, she returned to school at age 39 to earn a degree in social work and psychology. During that time, she began fighting for government and corporate support to build a wilderness camp for troubled kids in the Chilcotin.
She got her degree and she got her camp, too, through tireless work and her never-quit attitude.
She moved on to the B.C. Forest Safety Council, where she cemented that Bulldozer reputation, both in Prince George and in Victoria, for championing the rights of loggers and logging truck drivers.
It wasn't that long ago that workers put their lives at risk to earn a living in the bush.
In 2005, the year she joined the forest safety council, 43 workers died in B.C. forests. By 2009, that number was down to four. In 2011, that number was where it should be - zero.
There are dozens of forestry workers who owe their lives to Arcand's advocacy for forest safety.
"I'm pleased to see that people don't have to die just because they go to work," she said.
Yet when the subject came up, she often gave the credit to others. She insisted it was Pat Bell, during his term as forests minister, with support from Shirley Bond, that got the government to change forest policy and the culture of forest workers.
She heaped credit on former Citizen reporter Gordon Hoekstra, whose series on logging-truck drivers, Dying For Work, won the 2006 Michener Award, Canada's highest honour for public service journalism. She also credited Gordon Hamilton of the Vancouver Sun, whose forestry reporting earned him a National Newspaper Award, for bringing the dangers of working in the forest sector to the attention of Vancouver audiences.
The professional accolades Hoekstra and Hamilton earned for their outstanding journalism was due in part to Arcand's easy availability to provide context, contacts, background information and a couple of great quotes.
It was that unwillingness to blow her own horn that probably led to her failure to win a city council seat during the 2008 municipal election. She finished 11th, which in hindsight was a good thing .
A career in municipal politics would have distracted her from her work as executive director of the Central Interior Logging Association. When she took that job in 2009, she was the first-ever woman to lead a resource-based industry association in B.C. history.
She would have also been distracted from her other community service, such as being on the board of the Prince George Railway and Forestry Museum, the Trucking Safety Council of B.C., the B.C. Trucking Association and the B.C. Small Business Roundtable.
A devoted Rotarian, Arcand put in years of effort towards the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards program and each summer hosted a group of young adults at Ness Lake for leadership training. She helped get the Big Blue Ball off the ground to raise awareness and funds to fight prostate cancer. Last year, she was president of the Rotary Club of Prince George Downtown.
Arcand's extensive community service earned her numerous local and provincial honours, most recently as businessperson of the year in 2012 from the Prince George Chamber of Commerce.
To top it all off, she played guitar, sang beautifully and her infectious and hearty laugh was never far away.
Our condolences to her husband George and their children but also our thanks to them, for sharing her with the rest of us.
She was a talented and tough woman with a sharp mind and a caring soul. She will be missed.
