Gil grew up on a farm north of Edmonton, attending elementary and junior high school in Clyde (pop. 250) and high school in Westlock (pop. 5,000). His first paid job was working at a local feedlot, where he got his first taste of low-pay and dangerous work. Jobs as a construction labourer followed, reinforcing his sense that workers need to band together.
After finishing high school, Gil moved to Edmonton where he went to the University of Alberta, earning a bachelor’s degree in history and becoming an editor of the campus newspaper, the Gateway (which produced many other notable Albertans, including Peter Lougheed and Joe Clark).
Gil went on to get a Masters degree in Journalism from Carleton University in Ottawa. While at Carleton, Gil got his first experience as a union activist. As a research and teaching assistant, he was a member of Carleton’s CUPE local, where he became a shop steward (his first union meeting involved making picket signs for a strike that was averted with a tentative agreement at the 11 hour).
After graduation, Gil moved back to Edmonton where he worked as a reporter and producer for the Edmonton Journal, CFRN-TV and Canadian Press, the latter two being unionized workplaces (the Newspaper Guild and NABET, respectively, which both eventual merged with CEP, which subsequently merged with CAW to form Unifor).
Even back then (the 1990s) journalism was a very precarious profession, and during one stint of unemployment, Gil was approached by CUPE 30 (City of Edmonton outside workers) to craft a campaign to stop the contracting out of garbage collection in Edmonton. After the successful conclusion of that campaign, Gil was hired by the CUPE Council of Hospital Unions to develop one of the first provincewide campaigns against Ralph Klein’s cuts to public services.
Gil’s experience at CUPE led to him being offered a job as communications director at the Alberta Federation of Labour. That’s where Gil’s apprenticeship as a workplace and campaign organizer really began. He was “lent out” for months on end to affiliates in need of organizing assistance. For example, he helped UFCW 401 with their campaigns to organize workers at the Shaw Conference Centre (now the Edmonton Convention Centre) and the Lakeside meatpacking plant (now JBS) in Brooks. He also was “dropped in” to help affiliates on strikes, the biggest being the 75-day strike by UFCW 401 members at Safeway stores across the province.
Gil was also tapped to work closely with UNA and HSAA as the defacto campaign director for Friends of Medicare (they didn’t have any paid staff at the time) on a series of provincewide campaigns aimed at stopping the privatization of health care. It was these campaigns with affiliates that led union presidents to approach Gil about running for president, which he still describes as the honour of his life.
Gil lives in Edmonton with his partner, Susan, and is the proud father of three children who have grown up to be fine (and progressive) young adults.