Layton Legacy

As many Canadians from sea to sea to sea express their grief and condolences, it is important to reflect on the meaning of Jack Layton and his legacy.

Mr. Layton evolved as a politician, arriving at a point where he intrinsically understood that there is no "THEM", there is only us, and I commend him for it.

Make no mistake, I am not commenting about ideology, I am commenting about ethics. The level of political discourse in this country is following the American lead and becoming driven by ideology rather than pragmatism which is increasingly being reflected by our major media outlets and our politicians, and the acrimony that it foments infests our dinner tables, our coffee shops, and our corner bars.

We seem to be living in an age where the cheap marginalization of others is meekly accepted by a public keen to find  blame others for their own shortcomings, reducing our perceived enemies from our fellow human beings to objects, thereby removing their humanity and making it easier to be angry at "them" .

Mike Harris did it by attacking teachers and the poor, and he won.

Right wing "pundits" do it every day as they hammer away at "immigrants", propelling some myth that people who immigrate to this country take more than they give, and if you peel away at this polite onion you find an ugly centre of using government policy to promote hatred against people who are not like "US".

Stephen Harper uses the same tactic, when he refers to "The Sepratists", an attempt to dehumanize people who have a different view of federalism.

Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak is running on a platform of ridiculing the environmental agenda of the McGuinty government, saying "The premier wants to protect us from the plastic bag", while his real goal is to repeal environmental protection laws to make it easier for big polluters to rape the land.

Toronto mayor Rob Ford rode the same gravy train to victory, duping the stupid into thinking that all could be fixed by union busting with his bloated finger guiding the helm.

And on the left, we find the same intractable stupid greedheads running their various fifedoms. Union leaders who refuse to budge, unaware that their dug in heels will eventually be standing in line at an EI office. Politicians who care not about the constituency  they were elected to serve, but who prioritize their reelection above all reason, while blindly towing the party line.

Mr. Layton was a gentleman who grew to understand that the most important quality any politician could have was the ability to listen to the community, not the tribes. He was a man of the people, and we are all diminished by his passing.

My faint hope is that we remember Mr. Layton not for his ideology, but his inherent sense of community and his ability to bring people together.

His greatest legacy should be his unrelenting quest to find common ground, and we can best strive to remember him by making our own day to day conduct reflect that value.

Thank you, Mr. Layton, you embodied the very essence of the term "public service", and I am going to miss you deeply.

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