Remembering Jack Layton

After a very long hiatus, I feel I must write something on this site again, about Jack Layton, with whom at one time I worked very closely.

Although it would be hard to imagine any greater legacy for a politician than redrafting the electoral map of Canada, as he has done, I am awfully sorry he didn't get another decade (or two or three) to keep bringing about change simply by being the person he was. I also have great sympathy for Olivia, who will feel his loss immeasurably as she moves about their beautiful home, which is such a strong manifestation of their conjoined spirits.

Jack had a special quality of being always on duty. He never missed an opportunity to ask advice, to network, to find out more about what the people he represented might need. I first got to know him when I was a member of the Toronto City Cycling Committee. In those days (the late 1980s), he was just coming to the end of his time as the city councillor appointed to the committee.

That didn't mean he had to attend the twice-monthly meetings, but he made himself very open to TCCC members, and in fact to anyone who wanted to chat with him about any idea or project he might be able to assist. I remember sitting in his City Hall office on many occasions; it featured one of Olivia's staggeringly strong and impressive bronze sculptures. You didn't have to jump through hoops to see Jack; sometimes you could even drop in spontaneously.

In the days before email we TCCC members used to stuff, stamp and address the 3,000 or so copies of the city's cycling newsletter after meetings. On several occasions I remember Jack dropping in between 9 and 10 at night, after a very long day, to ask us what was up, to chat, to let us know about things we might be interested in. I believe he stuffed more than a few envelopes along the way.

In those days I think he represented what was then known as Ward 6, the territory on the east side of Yonge, south of Bloor. I was living with my husband near Church and Wellesley, so he was our councillor. Through my husband, who had previously managed political campaigns, I became actively involved in city politics, and eventually the two of us became part of an informal group known as Citywide NDP, a strategy largely masterminded by Jack to open up communication between municipal NDP campaigns in each ward.

There were about eight of us who would meet in each other's living rooms. Jack was always there. It wasn't something that he needed to devote any time to – heaven knows he had enough other priorities – but it was one of the numerous things he identified as a simple way to make big changes, so he found time for it.

It was almost a joke in those days how many fundraising auctions Jack turned up for, as auctioneer. It was an odd skill in a city councillor, but he recognized that this particular gift of his time could multiply his ability to do good a thousandfold. Over a dozen or so years he was responsible for helping to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars for community causes.

Similarly, he was always willing to turn up to present an award or preside at a community event. And his most remarkable gestures were often invisible to the general public. In 1995, when the city's bike messenger community was trying to bring the 3rd annual Cycle Messenger World Championships to Toronto, the event was baffled by a $7,000 charge for tarpaulin rental to cover the field at Lamport Stadium before the revenue for the event had started to come in. The organizers asked Jack for help, and his answer was to put the entire $7,000 on his own personal credit card to tide them over until the income started to flow.

He sincerely enjoyed being part of community events, which is how he must have stood the gruelling demands on his time. He liked being in a crowd of people engaged in doing something creative, something celebratory, something to build a community. And if there was a keg of beer around, so much the better. (He did tell me two secrets of organizing a successful fundraising auction: "Spend as much time getting people with money there as gathering items for auction" and "Make sure they have a chance to have a beer before the bidding starts.")

I remember in those days attending one of Jack's auctions, this one on behalf of the 519 Community Centre. Among other things, my husband and I successfully bid on a tandem bike tour of Toronto and a Chinese meal with Jack and Olivia, which he had donated along with his auctioneering services. At the time we laughed because we were spending so much time in each other's company in any case, but the four of us agreed to do it, and now I will especially treasure the memory of that junket around downtown as stoker on Jack's tandem, and the cheerful meal with Jack, Olivia and her mom.

That would have been during the time they were living just behind the BamBoo Club on Bulwer at Soho. It was a modest spot, but full of personal souvenirs and lots of cultural memorabilia. One of the things that struck me was a Caribana costume artfully suspended in one of the children's bedrooms. I served as media relations representative for the festival for several years, and Jack and Olivia especially loved the event. Like my husband and me, they enjoyed dancing with the Shadowland group from Ward's Island in the parade, not on a float with their names on it, but masked and painted, anonymous, in the crowd on the street.

That spirit permeated Jack and Olivia's home life as well as their political careers. Their campaigns were suffused with participation from the arts community. I remember a campaign event on Ward's Island, likely for Jack's mayoralty bid, that featured Moxy Früvous; of course the Barenaked Ladies also performed at Jack's events. When Jack and Olivia moved into their present home, it became a base for delightful social evenings where Jack would play the piano and hand around his collection of song sheets. Good music, good friends, good food, good drink; this enthusiasm for his own community was the root of Jack's passion for action. I think he essentially wanted to live in a world where everybody would be able to come to the (small P) party.

Once, after I had been working with Caribana for a few years, I ran into Jack on the street. "What would be the best thing the City could do to help the festival?" he asked us, off the top of his head. That was a typical Jack Layton moment; turning an inconsequential sidewalk encounter into a chance to support something he believed in.

Perhaps his biggest chance to help the festival came in 1996, when a shooting at the parade caused one death and paralyzed a nurse visiting from England. I was with the festival that year, and I knew Jack and Olivia had been dancing in costume very close to the spot where the shooting occurred. Cell phones were in their infancy in those days, but I had rented one for the weekend and called up Jack and Olivia at home (luckily, I knew their home number by heart; that's how accessible they were!)

Jack and Olivia instantly turned up at Police HQ at College and Bay for a press conference. Because they were actually involved in the life of their community, they were able to comment as participants, not just as politicians. It was genuine and powerful, and I really believe that their presence helped turn around the media story about the shooting and possibly the subsequent future of the festival.

I haven't been very active in politics for about some time now, but when I heard Jack was running for leadership of the NDP, I reinstated my lapsed membership so I could cast my vote in support of him. At the time, a dear friend who lives in Ottawa asked me what I thought of him. She was inclined to vote for him too, but was doubtful because she had the impression he had a tendency to seek the limelight. I gave her my thoughts on the matter and I believe she cast a vote for him. Thus, some time later, I was particularly pleased to see that the federal Jack remained as genuine as the municipal one.

The occasion was, if I remember correctly, his first Remembrance Day as leader of the federal NDP. With Canadian soldiers being killed in Afghanistan, it would have been a great chance for a cynical and glory-seeking individual to put his face out there in the media, perhaps appearing at the Cenotaph in Ottawa or at Toronto's Old City Hall, or at a high-profile photo op with some of our new generation of veterans. Instead, when I went up to the East York Civic Centre at 11 a.m., there was Jack. He was in his home riding, serving in a low-key way at a ceremony that was only covered, I believe, by the East York Mirror.

In the past few years I've only bumped into Jack socially: at the occasional Spacing magazine launch, for instance, and a couple of times in the crowd at Udupi Palace's Spicy Dosa Eating Competition on Gerrard East during the South Asian festival there. It was a typical Jack Layton appearance: cheerful, smiling, laughing, genuinely enjoying the colour and bustle and confusion of the street festival, completely unpretentious, utterly unafraid of the jostling mayhem, giving a little of his time and himself to everyone around him without having anything much to gain in the way of media attention.

Today there are memorial posters of Jack on the shopfronts in Gerrard India Bazaar. In the picture they've chosen of him, he looks almost transfigured, with kind, shining eyes, luminous skin and silver hair, gazing out over his lovely and inspiring final words. If he was cynical in his claim to espouse love, hope and optimism, I want to be cynical just like Jack.