Over the weekend Allan Engler died in his care home in New Westminster. My uncle was a few weeks shy of 86.
Born in rural Saskatchewan and raised in Moose Jaw, Al spent most of his adult life in Vancouver. He worked as a cook-deckhand and cook on towboats for 20 years and was elected multiple times to full-time positions in his militant union local (now ILWU Local 400).
The tugboat gave him time to read and write. In 1997 he published Apostles of Greed: Capitalism and the Myth of the Individual in the Market (Pluto) and 13 years later Economic Democracy: The Working Class Alternative to Capitalism (Fernwood).
Since his teens Al was active on the left. He joined those pushing Saskatchewan’s CCF government to introduce Canada’s first universal medical coverage and later would become a leader in the League for Socialist Action. In the mid-1970s Al supported his longtime partner Jean Rands and many others in their efforts to establish the feminist Service, Office and Retail Workers Union of Canada (SORWUC).
Al was an early advocate of linking labour and environmental struggles. He understood that capitalism exploited workers and nature while dispossessing First Nations.
Al and Jean were arrested and sentenced to house arrest for participating in the 1993 “War of the Woods” against logging the temperate rainforest at Clayoquot Sound.
Because of his organizing, specifically seeking to bring BC mine workers into a more leftist Canadian union, Al was blocked from entering the US. He was proud that he was one of the only Vancouver activists barred from crossing the border to protest the 1999 World Trade Organization conference in Seattle.
As a hockey obsessed youngster Al would spend time with me ruffling through hockey stats books and telling me about up-and-coming players. For one birthday Al and Jean gave me goalie pads that my friends and I spent most of the rest of the party playing with. For a Christmas gift he took me to Mario Lemieux’s first (maybe second) game against the Canucks. I still remember Al paying a scalper $50 outside the Pacific Coliseum. As my team crossed the Lower Mainland, Al would often come on the ride to my games.
A fond memory as a teenager was being ‘hired’ to help Al rebuild the fence at their longtime, rundown rental with a million-dollar view of North Vancouver’s mountains (the landlord kept the rent reasonable though did little upkeep). Since both of us were inept at the task we spent many hours building it and I ‘billed’ many hours.
Al and Jean opened their home to relatives’ kids. When I returned to Vancouver for summer employment after my first year in university I lived in their basement.
Unfortunately, Jean and Al’s hospitality led to heartbreak. Their adopted sons, Brian Rohatyn, and John Henry, passed far too young.
When I was set to go backpacking in Mexico before university Al gave me a copy of famed Caribbean Marxist CLR James’ The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. My introduction to Haitian history spurred my interest in the 2004 coup against Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which began my journey into challenging Canadian foreign policy. Al read my manuscripts and we would debate different points before publication. I sometimes felt he was overly reductive in explaining militarism as an entirely capitalist phenomenon.
The last three years were difficult. Al had a bad fall that he never fully recovered from and he and Jean were committed to a care home. In a fortunately timed trip, I saw Al for a final time ten days ago. It seemed clear the suffering should end. But when we told Jean that Al was being sent to the hospital she was distraught and wanted to join him. Together for over fifty years, Al’s passing will be hard for someone who participated in many fights for social justice.
Allan Engler spent most of his lifetime engaging in working class, indigenous, feminist, internationalist and environmental struggles. It was a life well lived.
You must be logged in to post a comment.