An Albertan who fought to become one of the first female land agents in the province's oil industry has won a discrimination complaint.

Court of Queen's Bench Justice Alan Macleod ruled that Delorie Walsh was the victim of gender discrimination, more than 15 years after she first filed the first of two unsuccessful complaints with Alberta's Human Rights and Citizenship Commission.

The actions of Walsh's supervisors at Mobil Oil Canada "were, at best, insensitive and, at worst, cruel," wrote the judge in his ruling, released last month.

Macleod ordered the two sides to come to an agreement on lost wages. The company says it's reviewing the decision.

Walsh, now a teacher at Olds College, said she feels vindicated to finally have a ruling but argues that women are still being denied opportunities.

"I had a student come to me, a female student, who in my opinion will make a very, very good land agent. She told me she had been to a couple of oil companies in Calgary to drop off her resumé and they told her straight out they don't hire women."

Walsh made less money

In the late 1980s, Walsh was a junior map clerk at a company that would later merge with Mobil Oil. But she was determined to become a land agent, a person who helps negotiate agreements between landowners and oil companies looking for places to drill.

The job is still often called a landman. Walsh says 20 years ago it was difficult, as a woman, to get support for her career choice.

"I had to put up with, generally, attitudes, and one was from a manager who said, 'No damn woman is going to be a landman,'" she recalled in an interview Wednesday.

Undeterred, Walsh got her licence and a position as a land agent. But she argued in court that she made less money than her male counterparts and her bosses blocked promotions and treated her unfairly.

She was fired in 1995.

Walsh filed complaints against Mobil Oil Canada in 1991 and 1995, but Alberta's Human Rights and Citizenship Commission dismissed both of them.

Macleod, however, agreed with Walsh in a May 11 ruling.

"Not only was Ms. Walsh reasonable in perceiving her termination to be in part motivated by retaliation, but no reasonable employee in her position would have come to any other conclusion," wrote the judge in his decision.

Walsh's lawyer, Shirish Chotalia, said women continue to struggle for equal treatment in the workplace.

"And it does ask Albertans to think about the fact that we're still not where we should be, where we want to be. We have legislation that says women should get the same pay as men, but we're still not there."