SYDNEY — It’s difficult to think of New Dawn Enterprises without thinking of Rankin MacSween.
After all, the 69-year-old MacSween has been the face and voice of the Sydney-based non-profit community development organization for the better part of four decades. He is also a two-time (2012 and 2016) Cape Breton Regional Municipality mayoral candidate He retired from his position as New Dawn president at the end of 2020. His replacement is Erika Shea, who has served as both the organization’s communications director and, more recently, as vice president of development.
Two weeks following the transition, MacSween is still out and about representing Canada’s oldest community development corporation in meetings with community stakeholders. He’s still busy, but he takes some time out to talk about a career that he accidentally fell into in his late 20s.
“I was young and not so bright,” joked MacSween, who arrived at The Convent, New Dawn’s signature property, with a Cape Breton tartan scarf draped around his neck.
“I had the best job in the whole world. It’s been 41 years of ongoing education in terms of understanding the community, better understanding the culture, better understanding business and better understanding how one gets things done. And throughout it I have been surrounded by really smart and motivated people who were my colleagues and my teachers.”
MacSween, who hails from the Boisdale area, was introduced to New Dawn Enterprises in the late-1970s after meeting the organization’s founder, the late Rev. Greg MacLeod, at Xavier College in Sydney’s north end.
“I became involved because I wanted to get better leverage for the project I wanted to do at the time,” confessed MacSween, who was pursuing work in the field of criminology that included looking for job opportunities for inmates and former offenders.
“But in the meantime, I was getting more and more introduced into the organization and, of course, I was pulled in further by the all of the troubles and financial issues that were going on then.”
By 1981, MacSween was chair of New Dawn’s board of directors. Two years later he became the organization’s non-paid part-time executive director, a position he assumed on a full-time basis in 1990 when he became president and chief executive officer.
The deep-voiced, yet soft-spoken, MacSween acknowledges the challenges that arose as Industrial Cape Breton has adapted to life after the demise of its once booming steel and coal centres.
“For many years we were a community trying to transition from an industrial economy and when that transition started the community started to spiral downwards and that has gone on for a long, long time,” said MacSween, who cites the re-location of the NSCC Marconi Campus to the Sydney waterfront and the recent influx of international students as significant events that will drive the community both economically and socially.
“Yes, there are signs that the spiral-down is levelling off and there are signs that we will climb again – there is more and more distance between that old industrial culture and our community of today.
“I am also quite taken with the number of young leaders that are emerging in business, in politics, in other areas of the community. It is exciting. I think there is a change and the full impact of that is still down the road.”
Erika Shea
Unlike MacSween, Shea is from away. Originally from Waterloo, Ont., the 42-year-old mother of two came to Cape Breton about 13 years ago with partner Rob Calabrese, a radio announcer turned cidermaker, who was raised in Port Morien.
“New Dawn wasn’t what attracted me here, but after I joined in 2012 I fell in love with the spirit of the organization,” said Shea, who holds a Master’s degree in Canadian Studies from Carleton University in Ottawa.
“For a fairly large organization there is a very real sense of freedom and imagination.”
Although Shea missed the immediate aftermath of Cape Breton’s de-industrialization, she’s been around long enough to have developed a good read on the many challenges that abound in the CBRM. And equally important, she has bought into the New Dawn vision of establishing and promoting “a self-reliant people in a vibrant community.”
“One of the things I have noticed is that there are more community organizations using the language of self-reliance – it has taken some time but it has woven itself into the way people want to see their community and their work,” said Shea.
The new New Dawn president also makes no apologies for being a friend and supporter of new CBRM mayor Amanda McDougall. And she said the changing face of local governments has meant that community development organizations like New Dawn are working more and more closely with elected officials on various projects and partnerships.
“We both work to make Cape Breton more vibrant and self-reliant,” said Shea.
“I think the relevance, power and influence of municipal government has changed so much over the past 15 years and now it plays a much more significant role in the health of the community.”
New Dawn employs more than 175 people. Its many projects include the Centre of Social Innovation, Cape Breton Island Centre for Immigration and Meals on Wheels.
