"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world." from Jack Laytons' last message to Canadians: "Dear Friends"
I only just now got online with our computer and have been fairly cut off...and just got a phone (and tv we have been without here) and called my daughter who told me Jack Layton died on Monday. I voted for Jack in Vancouver just recently and have worked on his campaigns and been to celebratory parties for him over the years. We were neighbours for many of the years I lived on the east end in Toronto and he was always around on his bike and he was approachable on so many levels. I am a wreck with this news partly because he was such an awesome civil servant and because in so many ways he is the last of old-school Canadian traditional politics. I am sorry for our loss of a massive political animal and public servant but also because he represents so much of what I love about Canada: Tolerance, compassion. energy, humour, passion, equality. I feel Canada has been going to hell ina handbasket for several years now and Jack Layton was a force keeping the traditions and conservative values that defined the Canada I grew up in. Canada is not only not the country my grandparents lived in but its not even the country my parents lived in anymore. Jack Layton was one of the the conservative traditional and hopeful energies of Canada that countered the extremists in power recently. We've lost a legend and a fantastic person. Poor poor Canada.
2 comments:
I hadn't heard of him til I read about his passing on another blog...he really sounds like quite a man...such a loss.
Hey Janet, I was a wreck last night. After I got off the phone with my daughter I cried for over an hour. Stagg had found out a lot about Jack when he was in Canada so he completely understood how I felt. I feel this is such a loss for Canada and it's services, unions, hman rights and especially medical services. I hope I'm just bummed and over worried. These things have been being attacked by extrememists politicians in the last 20 years...fools like Rob Ford, Mel Lastman on loacl levels and Harper and Manning federally. Those guys are rampant extremists and it's pretty depressing. Like having Bill O'Reily or a Bush family dynasty here in the states running the joint. Jack was a force representing people like me...and traditional Canadian goals like family, tolerance, human rights. ERRRGGHHH...
I went to the grocery store last night and started crying all over again...in the fricking store. I called friends in Toronto and had to not talk because I would start crying again.
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