Career
Oleson was educated at Minnedosa Collegiate, the Manitoba Provincial Normal School and Brandon College. Prior to running for political office, Oleson raised three children and worked as librarian for the town of Glenboro and later for Glenboro Collegiate. She was a councillor in the Village of Glenboro from 1977 to 1980, and the Deputy Mayor of the community from 1980 to 1982. She also served as Vice-Chair of the Cypress Planning District from 1980 to 1982, and is a member of the Glenboro and Area Historical Society.
Oleson was first elected to the Manitoba legislature in the provincial election of 1981, winning victory in the rural riding of Gladstone. She was re-elected in the 1986 election, despite a credible showing from a candidate of the upstart Confederation of Regions Party. The Manitoba New Democratic Party won both of these elections, and Oleson sat in the opposition benches.
She was re-elected again in the provincial election of 1988, as the Progressive Conservatives formed a minority government under the leadership of Gary Filmon. On May 9, 1988, she was named Minister of Community Services and Minister of Employment Services and Economic Security with responsibility for the Status of Women. She resigned from the latter two responsibilities on April 21, 1989 to retire, and did not seek re-election in 1990.
Oleson remains an active member of the Glenboro community, serving as President of the Glenboro Development Corporation, Chair of the Friends of Spruce Wood Park, and the Criddle/Vane Homestead committee.
Read more about this topic: Charlotte Oleson
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)