Dickie steps up for NDP nomination

Kathi Dickie is looking to continue the legacy of community service and political involvement instilled by her father years ago.

On Sept. 3, Dickie was acclaimed as the NDP candidate for Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies. Dickie's candidacy brings the total of names on the Oct. 19 ballot to five, joining the Green Party's Elizabeth Biggar, Libertarian Todd Keller, Liberal Matt Shaw and Conservative incumbent Bob Zimmer.

"My dad was always a voter and he was always actively involved in the community of Fort Nelson, Dickie said of her father Harry Dickie, who was on the hospital board as well as the first First Nations man elected to the board of trustees for School District 81. "He inspired the family. ... I made a comment that I'm second-generation NDP and I probably would have been third or fourth if my grandparents had the right to vote."

Aboriginal people did not get the right to vote in Canada without losing their treaty status until 1950.

Dickie said she also inspired to reach for something more by witnessing how both of her parents overcame hurdles placed in their path by the residential school system and every day prejudice.

"My parents never did give up and they never did give in to the despair and the hopelessness," said Dickie, herself a single mother. "They kept striving, so it's my parents that inspire me to keep on going."

Dickie's history of community involvement has been heavily rooted in education. She began more than three decades ago working in the Fort Nelson First Nation with the school district as a home school co-ordinator.

Dickie has also been involved with Chalo School, an independent institution just outside of Fort Nelson co-founded by her sister Carole Corcoran that started as a preschool and kindergarten in 1982.

She served on the school-board equivalent Community Education Authority for about 20 years and during that time returned to school to to finish her teaching degree. After teaching for a few years, Dickie said she wanted to find another way to serve her community and began working for the First Nation in economic development and employment fields.

Dickie currently serves as a councillor for Fort Nelson First Nation and was the first woman to be elected chief of the band in 1988.

The key issue Dickie said she would want to tackle as a member of Parliament for the region would be diversifying the economy in the north east, which is heavily dependent on the natural gas industry.

"I'm worried if they don't have jobs then they won't be able to frequent businesses and businesses will suffer so it will just be like a domino effect," Dickie said of the effect of natural gas activity coming to a standstill in Fort Nelson.

She said she couldn't have aligned herself with the NDP if their goal was do away with natural resource development. Instead, she said there needs to be a way to continue natural resource development, but in a sustainable fashion.

"So if we can find a way to diversify our economy so we can get away from that boom and bust cycle and just bring some stability," she said.