Remembering Jack

From principled stances on Afghanistan to domestic violence, Layton leaves a remarkable political legacy.

The news was not unexpected. But that Jack Layton should pass from the scene so shortly after he had achieved the political miracle of bringing the NDP to Opposition status remains hard to grasp. He was always so dynamic, and never more so than during the campaign of 2011. And now he is gone.

Jack Layton was a man of honour, intelligence and creativity. He brought a badly needed constructive outlook to federal politics. During the 2011 campaign, the Liberals seemed to do little more than argue for the status quo. The Conservatives, trumpeting plans to build more prisons in order to put more Canadians into them, seemed downright menacing.

The Mark News reflects on what Jack meant to a new generation of Canadians. Read our commentary here.

But Jack was really looking a long way down the road, and doing a first class job of communicating what he saw: a country of progressive values, equal rights and environmental sustainability. Many Canadians, and Quebecers in particular, liked what they heard and responded by rewarding the NDP with 103 out of 308 seats in the House of Commons.

While we may have been wowed by his performance in the last election campaign, Layton himself was no overnight sensation. He entered public life with his election to Toronto City Council in 1982, and immediately became known for his willingness to work closely with activists and advocacy groups. He spent 18 years on Council, and in 1991 ran for Mayor. On the afternoon of his death, hundreds of people came to City Hall to remember him and to console each other. Stories were told of how Jack saved this, or innovated that, how he supported the arts, and how he came out for the pro-choice movement and the city’s LGBT community, long before most politicians (including New Democrats) would touch those issues.

It was by being that kind of man that Jack Layton showed us what public service is all about. He became the great enabler of citizens whose concerns were perennially ignored by City Hall and other levels of government. By doing so, he also made a lot of enemies. At times it was astonishing the level of vitriol that was directed at him. Simply because he and Olivia Chow lived in a housing co-operative, they were falsely accused of stealing money from taxpayers. For his work for peace in Afghanistan, he was derided as “Taliban Jack,” a vilification which is all the more outrageous when one remembers Layton was the co-founder of the White Ribbon campaign to stop violence against women. In retrospect, the smears can be seen as a measure of how much he worried the forces whose power he threatened.

While he may be gone, he left a remarkable political legacy of citizen empowerment and constructive proposition. Canada will be a better place if the politicians who are falling over themselves to pay tribute to him now can find it within themselves to emulate Layton’s methods. Or they can at least follow the appeal to our better natures which he penned in his last days. Here’s hoping that can happen.