Monday August 22nd, 2011 started off as an unseasonably cold day in Toronto. Later in the morning, I thought that it appeared to be a sort of pathetic fallacy: Jack Layton had passed away at 04:45.
I didn’t believe the news when I first read it on my BlackBerry. Layton had survived cancer once already, and it had been publicly announced that he’d come down with it again. However, he had seemed so energetic and full of life during the recent federal election campaign that no one seriously thought he was even going to be sick for very long. Layton had always been a fighter, and it was difficult to believe that he would be taken down by such a trivial thing as illness. However, as more and more news sources corroborated the story, and a letter to Canadians that was so very much in his style was published, it slowly sank in that this was not some sort of elaborate prank. He’d been killed by the cancer lurking in his body.
Original image by Andrew Vaughan, The Canadian Press
At 21:45 that night, I walked into Nathan Phillips Square, just in front of Toronto City Hall, where Layton had served for many years as a city councillor. I was too late to sign the condolences book that day, but I saw first-hand just how hard Canadians felt the loss. His passing left a deep hole in our collective public consciousness.
An ad-hoc memorial had sprung up, consisting of old campaign signs, hand-drawn posters, computer-printed letters, candles, flowers, and chalk messages scrawled directly onto the pavement. I stared in solemn silence as it sunk in how much he’d meant to Canadians: politicians just don’t get this kind of a send-off.
The memorial stretched over the paved ground and climbed up the support pillars of the ramp that leads to Toronto City Hall’s outdoor second level, within view of the bicycle posts that he would have used when he was on the premises, underneath the complex’s Green Deck. I picked my way carefully across the paving stones, trying desperately not to step on anyone’s chalked-on thank-you note. Photographers’ flashes and shutter clicked sporadically around me, creating a more permanent record of the outpouring of grief before a downpour of rain could wash it away. It was a fitting farewell for a man who was such a strong voice for city-building. As the bold president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, he had lobbied for and helped create the infrastructure spending that now helps Canadian cities grow in symbiosis with their denizens. Almost in reflection of that, this memorial was community-driven and integrated into existing infrastructure.
The messages expressed praise for his work, thanks for giving us someone who made us proud of our government, tearful outpourings of grief that he was no longer with us, promises to fight on in his absence. Chalk portraits of him were rubbed into the paving stones next to expressions of gratitude for the fact that he’d made someone aware of the need for men like him. Bold letters above arrays of candles declared that he was the reason they voted. It was appropriate that Layton, whose optimism and commitment were his greatest sources of strength, should incur a memorial that reflected both.
IMAGE SLIDESHOW: CHALK ON CONCRETE
A mix of mourners were still on site, holding vigil. Community-activist types, working-class types, academics, businessmen, new-media types. I spotted George Stroumboulopoulos, who had helped raise public awareness of Layton’s political party with a passionate biopic of NDP founding member Tommy Douglass, quietly move through the crowd. Cross-trainers were planted next to work boots, which were planted next to wing-tip shoes, which were planted next to bicycle tires, which were planted next to skateboard shoes: a mosaic of rubber over the one of chalk.
At one point, a group of brash young men in hip-hopper clothes strutted up to the centre of the vigil, where a mass of candles was packed into a near-bonfire. The leader of the pack called for a cigarette, and was passed one by another man in the group as they approached the candles. I raised an eyebrow at what appeared to be a breach of etiquette in progress… until the lead man broke the cigarette up, extracted the tobacco contained within, and began waving his arms in slow arcs over the chalk writing and posters. It was only after I caught sight of his profile and the colour of his skin in the candlelight that I belatedly realised what was going on: I was witnessing a First Nations requiem ceremony, carried out with prayers and crumbled tobacco leaves.
Layton spent his career building rapport between different people who might not otherwise have been natural allies: people not only of different ethnic and cultural heritage, but of different economic classes. It showed in the diversity of faces lit by candlelight at the foot of the ramp: the cultural mosaic, which so many reactionaries look down on us for having, was spread out on the grounds of City Hall before me.
His trademark moustache and real happiness in fighting for people won Jack Layton the admiration of the Canadian people. Original image by Ingelbert Lievaart II
Standing in a cold wind staring grim-faced at the mourners and the chalk, I realised just what we’ve all lost.
Jack Layton was a rare public official who earned a nickname that wasn’t intended maliciously: “Smiling Jack” did not refer to a shark’s smile but to a human one, attached to a man whose boundless optimism seemed only matched by his commitment to the public he served. Canadians, so used to politicians who were only worthy of our scorn, were pleasantly surprised to find that we genuinely liked him.
Added to that is that Jack Layton epitomised what Canadians aspire to be as a nation: a friendly yet commanding presence, determined and unyielding while eminently charming, confident without being overbearing, sharp-minded and eloquent yet very down-to-earth, building connections between previously isolated groups and alliances between unlikely partners. He was what Canadians want Canada to be.
He had gone through some trouble to be that man. Layton came from a wealthy family that had a reputation for serving corporations at the expense of citizens, people who had time and money to invest in political careers merely to further their own business interests: his father, Robert, was a member of the federal cabinet that served Brian Mulroney, best known for its corruption and for turning over public assets to private hands; his grandfather, Gilbert, was a minister of the provincial government under Maurice Duplessis, known in Québec as the architect of The Great Darkness. Raised on a silver spoon, there was little reason for Jack Layton to serve the public, and plenty of reason for him to serve private interests. However, he did not play his cards that way. He not only turned coat on his family and went to bat for regular citizens, but he never used his doctorate or well-heeled background to browbeat them. Having obtained a PhD in Political Science, he could have gone to work for the highest bidder as his father and grandfather had before him. Instead, he spent twenty years advocating for the average joe from within the trenches of municipal politics before running for leadership of a social-democratic political party that was in fourth place in Parliament. He didn’t need to play his hand like that… but he did anyway.
Furthermore, he was the leader whom Canadians were increasingly looking towards to mend a country damaged by separatist factions on one hand, divisive brinkmanship games being played by our sitting Prime Minister on the other hand, and a recession in the background. His final election campaign decimated Québec’s sovereignty movement by giving le Québécois a national party that they could support. His reasoned, studious approach to policy had given the NDP an economic platform that attracted attention and votes: supporters of Canada’s former big-tent centrist party, left without a voice as infighting and mission-drift suffocated its esprit de corps, lent their votes to his NDP rather than to the sitting prime minister’s party, and his NDP moved boldly into its territory it has previously been denied. Winning 67 seats in that territory all at once, vaulting his party from a distant fourth place to Official opposition status, he had put the governing party on notice that his NDP was positioned to mount a serious challenge to its rule.
Optimism, charisma, sound thinking, good leadership, consensus-building, and be brought back results. He was not a man we could afford to lose at this crucial moment in history.
Now we’ve lost him.
I stood surveying the chalk and candles, and shed tears for Canada.
With his historic election win, Jack Layton put the ruling party on notice: voters are willing to defend their rights. Original photograph by Andrew Vaughan, The Canadian Press
The biggest candle of all has yet to be lit. The staff of the CN Tower have announced that they’ll be setting the tower’s external LED lighting to orange this Saturday evening, after Jack’s funeral, as a commemoration. For the size of the mark the man left on our country, it’s just about the correct size. Smiling Jack was the sort of unifying force, wise thinker and community-builder that we need. He will be sorely missed, not just by the family members who survive him, but also by the people to whom he gave someone worth cheering for; we’ve lost a leader whom we could look up to and who would not look down upon us. He was a rare public official who inspired people to rally around him rather than merely vote for him.
I fear what will become of us without him.
~ STEELCAVER
