4 - Friday, January 8, 1993 —- North Shore News

Viary Coll

UNKINDLY REFERRED (0 as ‘'Bubbles’’ by. one of her

Conservative colleagues, and you know how these things

get around, Canada’s brand-new minister for western

economic diversification seems a Jot less likely to go pop at
/ the merest touch (han her image might suggest:

Blessed and cursed by being
blonde, single, and attractive —
attributes that the left’s
puritanical Valkyries insist

_shouldn’t even be mentioned —
Mary Collins strikes me as being
disarmingly effective and
technocratically capable. More
like a.shiny ball-bearing — hard
and durable -- than a bubble.

I suspect that she’s gained a lot
more yardage on her particular
cabinet turf than some of her
ostensibly more intellectual — she
certainly isn’t that — colleagues.

No, not intellectual. But smart
for the times. And with a rather
more extensive administrative ca-
reer than most of her Capilano-
Howe Sound constituents perhaps
know...

Also, charming. Laughs easily.
The smile isn’t a politically con-
trived one, I'd guess.

Furthermore, to again infuriate
the correctness crazies, quite ex-
plicitly feminine. Which I'd guess
has helped her put across high-
risk policies where men and angels
fear to tread.

For, unless you're from a tong
way out of town, you'll know that
until Monday’s cabinet shuffle,
Mary Collins was — a blinding
stroke of Brian Mulroney’s ge-
nius? — Canada’s associate
minister of defence. ;

Which means: the junior
minister. Her field was people,
not popguns. :

She doesn’t mind a bit telling
about the. surprise when Mulroney
called her in for what was ob-

‘ viously a cabinet job.

' When he said he wanted her to

be associate minister of defence,

“7 wish you could have seen my
face! Because never in my wildest
dreams had I even thought of
that. But 1 thought it was
brilliant! Because it’s the first
woman, And-[really think it

"showed the prime minister’s

commitment to making change —
knowing that that would make a
statement; obviously.”
Maybe that’s why,|too,
7 Mulroney gave her cabinet Te-
sponsibility for the status of

‘.=women a year later —- a role she
’ keeps after the switch to Western

: - economic diversification...

The next day she had her first:
military briefing.

“TF thought: “Oh, bay Go

don’t know the difference between
‘a sergeant and a captain. How do

Trevor
Lautens

“GARDEN OF BIASES

Qe

-L project that [’m in charge?
Maybe you slap the guys on the
‘soldier and call them ‘Biff,’ I

, Suggested, ina painful attempt to

be witty.

“Oh, no, you don’t do that,”
Mary Collins said earnestly.

if the brass thought she was (a)
green as grass or (b) a gushing,
eyelash- fluttering token woman
sent to do a.man’s job, they might
have been right about (a) but
proved resoundingly wrong about
(b).

She marshalled two stunning
assaults on the conventional mili-

“tary mind.

First, she presided over a vastly
increased role for women, in-.
cluding potential cornbat duty.
Second, she guided the Armed
Forces into undiscriminating ac-
ceptance of gays and lesbians in
the ranks.

in her sunny- -disposition way,

. she said the top military officers

have been ‘unfailingly supportive
... and they haven't always liked
my point of view or the directions

that I've brought. But I tiink I've

kind of earned my spurs there.”
She also created a consultative *

committee on social change in the:.-

milicary.

_ ty inembers include civilians,
ex-military people, and minority.’
group representatives — like Aziz

: Khaki, of Vancouver. -:, ;

“It’s sort of letting other infiu-
ences become involved,’’.she said.

Now, you might tend to ask —
as I would — what the hell all this

“has to do. with building and main-
taining an effective Armed Forces.

Do those changes, Il asked, have

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uny appeal to the guy who’s actu-
ally carrying a rifle?

“Probably doesn’t,’’ Mary Cal-
lins conceded. She paused for
quite a while. “But... well... if
his family is happy, then this guy
is going to be happier. ... [f he’s’
treated fairly, if because he may
be a minority of some kind --- we
work very hard to create a better
environment for people who are
different,” she trailed off.

She has the same pleasant
let’s-be-nice technique — with the
same but-do-it-my-way subtext
of the person who just happens to
hold the power — in her approach
to her other responsibility, ;

_women’s issues.
Both the “left” and the “right’? ~

women’s groups are mad at her,
she allows. ;
**You can’t be associated with’
either of the polarities. You’ve got
to find a middle road — and, in
my mind, very much a road that
brings men and women together.’’
And how, for instance, did she
get along with Judy Rebick —
who, in my gentle opinion, is a.
nut-case feminist? :
(Imagine someone so sexist that

she advocates allowingonly women
refugees into Canada in some

cases.)

Mary Collins took a long time
to answer that one too. Short an-
swer: both are working toward ‘‘a
society that’s truly equalist’’- but
with different approaches,

She, Collins, has chosen to
work within the system. Rebick,
outside of it, uses ways that in-

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clude ‘‘anger and railing.”*

But — quick with generosity —
“you probably need both.””

She also claimed to have sym-
pathy for REAL Women of
Canada, defenders of homemakers
and family.

If this strikes you as sweet Red
Toryism without vengeance,
you've probably got it about
right.

It's been a longer road than
many voters realize.

Collins was born in Vancouver
— a Libran, born Sept. 26, 1940

:— studied political science at;

UBC, then took her final year at
Queens University in Kingston. "
. She didn’t plan it that way, but
it turned out that she lived away
from B.C. for years.

She began a lons civil-service’

, career as a recruitment officer for

the Ontario government. Then |
director of personnel for the
welfare department, and then for
the department of energy and
resources, her first experience in
“going into a tctally male en-
vironment,’’ where “you had to
work hard ti: be accepted because
you were always perceived as,
young, female — and trivialized
because of that.” :
Resentful? No. ‘I've never been

7 a person who feels resentful. ...°"
“My sense has always been: How

“do you find ways of bringing
people around?””.

It must have worked. After.four
years serving an Ontario royal »
commission on health profes-
sionals, Collins became the first

woman executive officer inthe - ;
premier’ s office — the premier be-
ing John Robarts. After that,
more work implementing the ad-
vice of the earlier royal commis-

‘sion,

Then her husband, a deputy |
minister, was sent off to Sudbury
to head the regional government
there. Devastating. The marriage .
collapsed there (her husband has:
‘ since died), But — ever seeing the
smiling side —
Sudbury experience ‘‘wonderful”’
and leading to better things./

She started a consulting practice
on social policy. That led to simi:
lar work for the Alberta oil in-
dustry i in the Northwest Ter-
ritories, where native sensitivities
were just starting to be addressed, °

She finally moved to Calgary in
1977, started a couple of maga- ~
zines on the side, and-after the oil,
crash worked for Brinco; even-
tually moving back te B:C. to fix
a Brinco project on Vancouver :
Island.

' She'd never run for any offic ice
but in 1984 won the Tory © .:
Capilano-Howe Sound nomina-
tion and was pitched into the fed-.,

eral election almost at once, and _

won again.
The rest is ‘history ~ _ still un- :
folding. You can be skeptical of
“our new western economic devel.
opment minister’s social Philoso-
phy — as | am — but impressed’
with her understated, under-rated’
political deftness. If that’s a bub-.
ble, it’s still risitig. ‘

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Collins found the».

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