Jack Layton dead at 61 | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Jack Layton dead at 61

Rest in Peace, sad to see you go Jack.
 
He was a great Canadian who fought to make life better for all Canadians. He will be sorely missed.
 
Cancer took him far too quickly. RIP, Jack Layton. I don't agree with many NDP policies but that does not take away from respecting him for what he achieved.
 
While I disagreed with many of his policies I respected his tenacity on others. He did a lot of work with programs to end violence against women and other issues that crossed all party and income divisions. RIP.
 
Christie Blatchford's piece in the National Post:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...ath-turns-into-a-thoroughly-public-spectacle/
[h=1]Christie Blatchford: Layton’s death turns into a thoroughly public spectacle[/h]

Christie Blatchford Aug 22, 2011 – 6:53 PM ET | Last Updated: Aug 23, 2011 10:07 AM ET

By the accounts of those who knew him best and loved him most, if there was a truly private side of Jack Layton, it was but a sliver of the man who happily lived virtually his entire adult life in the public eye and who was a 24/7 politician who was always on.

Yes, his death at 61 was sad and too soon; yes, he made an enormous contribution to his party and a significant one to Canada (though I would quibble with NDP MP Libby Davies’ characterization that “He gave his life for this country”); yes, he fought a brave battle against cancer, as, mind you, does just about anyone who has it; and yes, he was a likeable, agreeable, smiley man.

Yet what was truly singular about him was how consumed by politics he was and how publicly, yet comfortably, he lived.

How fitting that his death should have been turned into such a thoroughly public spectacle, where from early morn Monday, television anchors donned their most funereal faces, producers dug out the heavy organ music, reporters who would never dream of addressing any other politician by first name only were proudly calling him “Jack” and even serious journalists like Evan Solomon of the CBC repeatedly spoke of the difficulty “as we all try to cope” with the news of Mr. Layton’s death. By mid-day, after Prime Minister Stephen Harper had offered a few warm words about Mr. Layton’s death and rued that their oft-talked-about jam session had never happened, Mr. Solomon even expressed sniping surprise that “Jack Layton wasn’t the sole focus” of the Prime Minister’s remarks.
Mr. Harper, who clearly had not spent the day watching the national broadcaster and thus was unaware that the NDP Leader’s death was the only story of note, had gone on to mention the families of the 12 people (including six-year-old Cheyenne Eckalook; now there’s someone who died far too young) who perished in the Arctic plane crash on Saturday and the tumultuous events in Libya.
The PM in fact was one of a very few voices of reason to be found on the airwaves — he remembered Mr. Layton kindly and with evident regard, but he had perspective and did not fawn.
And what to make of that astonishing letter, widely hailed as Mr. Layton’s magnificent from-the-grave cri de coeur?
It was extraordinary, though it is not Mr. Solomon’s repeated use of that word that makes it so.
Rather, it’s remarkable because it shows what a canny, relentless, thoroughly ambitious fellow Mr. Layton was. Even on Saturday, two days before he died, he managed to keep a gimlet eye on all the campaigns to come.
The letter is full of such sophistry as “We can restore our good name in the world,” as though it is a given Canada has somehow lost that, bumper-sticker slogans of the “love is better than anger” ilk and ruthlessly partisan politicking (“You decided that the way to replace Canada’s Conservative federal government with something better was by working together with progressive-minded Canadians across the country,” he said in the section meant for Quebecers).
The letter is vainglorious too.
Who thinks to leave a 1,000-word missive meant for public consumption and released by his family and the party mid-day, happily just as Mr. Solomon and his fellows were in danger of running out of pap? Who seriously writes of himself, “All my life I have worked to make things better”?
The letter was first presented as Mr. Layton’s last message to Canadians, as something written by him on his deathbed; only later was it more fully described as having been “crafted” with party president Brian Topp, Mr. Layton’s chief of staff Anne McGrath and his wife and fellow NDP MP Olivia Chow.
Mr. Layton wrote it, as Mr. Topp told Mr. Solomon, “in his beautiful, energy-retrofitted house” in downtown Toronto. These people never stop.
The reaction to his death — it was still shocking how fast it came, despite his cadaverous appearance in late July when he stepped down, temporarily it was hoped — was universally described as unique and of course, the day’s adjective, as extraordinary.
Held out as evidence of Canadians’ great love for Mr. Layton were the makeshift memorials of flowers, notes that appeared at his Toronto constituency office and on Parliament Hill, and in condolences in social media.
In truth, none of that is remotely unusual, or spontaneous, but rather the norm in the modern world, and it has been thus since Princess Diana died, the phenomenon now fed if not led online. People the planet over routinely weep for those they have never met and in some instances likely never much thought about before; what once would have been deemed mawkish is now considered perfectly appropriate.
Certainly, Canadians liked Mr. Layton, but the public over-the-top nature of such events — by fans for lost celebrities they never met, by television personalities for those they interviewed once for 10 minutes, by the sad and lost for the dead — make it if not impossible then difficult to separate the mourning wheat from the mourning chaff. His loss — his specific loss and his specific accomplishments — are thus diminished.
His greatest moments — the bravest and most admirable — came during his fight with prostate cancer, the subsequent hip surgery and his most recent battle with the cancer, whose nature he never disclosed except to say it was new, which killed him.
He must have been in pain; he may have been afraid. Yet again and again, waving the cane that became in his clever hands an asset, he campaigned tirelessly.
In the end, it was Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, a family physician whose Toronto practice once counted Mr. Layton’s family as patients, who said it best and with a physician’s sorrowful pragmatism: “As family doctors, we don’t have magic wands…this street fighter lost to the body betrayal.”
National Post
cblatchford@postmedia.com
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Stay classy, Christie.
 
Not saying I agree completely, but she raises a good point. All of a sudden, people who don't follow politics, government, or elections are all suddenly saying he was an inspiration to them. I feel like paying respects to someone you never respected before they died, after they died is sort of like a slap to their (figurative) face.

I'm not hating on Jack...I was actually really excited to see him lead the opposition. But it disgusts me how everyone suddenly appreciates the dude 'cause they see that some people legitimately do :S

Btw, does anyone disagree with the state funeral?
 
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knowledge said:
Not saying I agree completely, but she raises a good point. All of a sudden, people who don't follow politics, government, or elections are all suddenly saying he was an inspiration to them. I feel like paying respects to someone you never respected before they died, after they died is sort of like a slap to their (figurative) face.

I'm not hating on Jack...I was actually really excited to see him lead the opposition. But it disgusts me how everyone suddenly appreciates the dude 'cause they see that some people legitimately do :S

Btw, does anyone disagree with the state funeral?
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There's nothing wrong with paying respects to someone after they've died, that you never respected in real life. People do that with their families every single day.

Sometimes you don't appreciate someone when they're alive. You take them for granted. Then when they're gone, you look around and say, hey, I think we're going to miss that guy.

Far from being strange, I think that's more the norm than the exception.

I disagreed with Jack Layton on pretty much every single point of policy. But not until now did I realize what he brought to the discussion. Knowing that we're going to have Harper, Bob Rae, and someone I've never heard of before, arguing in Parliament, is very disappointing.

What's that saying? You never know what you've got till it's gone.
 
Mr. Layton will always have my respect for being the proverbialunderdog his whole political life then really achieving something for his party in the end. It's going to be a shame watching the NDP get steamrolled in Parliament without him. As for his letter to me? I'm still not voting NDP so lay off. As for Christie Blatchford's piece in the National Post: we need more people to have the guts in media to tell it like it is and ignore the bleeding hearts of some.
 
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I am shocked because he appear so healthy on the media. Recently I saw him with a cane and they were commenting on his health but I never knew how serious it was.

RIP Jack
 
RockerGuy said:
I am shocked because he appear so healthy on the media.
Click to expand...


I'm assuming you didn't see his July 25th press conference. After the initial shock of how gaunt he was, I thought to myself "dead man talking". Anyone who's lost friends/loved ones to cancer knows that look, and there's only one outcome.
 
FullMotoJacket said:
I'm assuming you didn't see his July 25th press conference. After the initial shock of how gaunt he was, I thought to myself "dead man talking". Anyone who's lost friends/loved ones to cancer knows that look, and there's only one outcome.
Click to expand...

I guessed I missed it!

Too young to go, though
 
I used to get phone messages with his voice on my answering machine during the last election. It sounded like he was really calling me but I'm pretty sure it was prerecorded. The other candidates didn't do that. He seemed like a nice guy, certainly the nicest compared to the other politicians. I even voted NDP a couple of times. But this liberal-media love-in is going a bit overboard. If Layton was Catholic, he'd be in line for sainthood.
 
I have to say; I don't particularly disagree with a state funeral. Well, maybe I do, maybe I don't; it's not that big a deal. But what kills me is how Layton's supporters are going on as though this is merely the least we could do. Not two days ago these people were criticizing Harper for changing the names of the air force and navy to the Royal Canadian Air Force, and Royal Canadian Navy. Bear in mind the military is present in a ceremonial role for state funerals. Two days ago, Harper was trying to drag Canada back into its dark days, rehash colonialism, and isolate immigrants and Quebecers who don't particularly care for the Queen. Today? Well, how dare we not involve the military in his funeral! The flag flown at half mast all around the country, and on top of Parliament Hill (something dead soldiers don't merit, may I remind you) just isn't enough; a public funeral or memorial service isn't enough; it needs to be a state funeral, something typically not accorded to someone of his position. Given the sheer knee-jerk reactionary nature of a lot of NDP supporters towards the Harper government I was half expecting them to be against having a state funeral just because Harper had approved it.

I mean ultimately it's appropriate to have some kind of public function to "celebrate his life", as they say. It doesn't really make too much of a difference if it's a "state funeral" or a public memorial service (which would be attended by the same dignitaries as a state funeral, anyways).

As a secondary point; I look forward to the day a popular public figure can die without everyone pulling a Princess Diana. It's undignified, and in a certain way, insulting to the family. The only connection most people have with Layton is seeing him on TV; why are you crying over his death? I feel bad for his family and friends, who've had to see him go through all of these medical issues and die far too young. But it's not my grief or my tragedy, and it sure as hell isn't ​ours.

[video=youtube;cyJazf6umpc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyJazf6umpc[/video]
 
Even though a state funeral is not required, it is the right thing to do. Jack Layton was the official opposition. In a democratic government that position is almost as important as the prime minister, to provide balance to government policy and discussion.

As for the public reaction, this isn't some left wing conspiracy. Look at the last election results. The majority of the seats that the NDP won were because people were voting for Jack, not their local MP. Even many of the people that didn't vote for him, still appreciate what he brought to the political scene.

He is a force that will be missed, RIP Jack
 
As for the state funeral.. He was the head of opposition, which gives you a few percs. I wouldn't mind it for sitting MP's and former PM's.
 
I think there's an important difference here between someone like Princess Diana, or Amy Winehouse, and someone like Jack Layton. These other people who die, they are public figures and celebrities, and people have an emotional connection to them, but they are not elected. Jack is a person that people CHOSE. They voted for him, to represent them. No one voted for Diana. She wasn't responsible for making people's lives better. A lot of people had future hopes invested in Jack Layton. He was supposed to do good things for the people that voted for him, so there's a direct connection. With him dying, it's a big disappointment to those who had hoped he would lead in making some real changes. So I can understand that the grief is more real, and not so voyeuristic.
 
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