Jack Layton’s Real Legacy

             Now that most friends, followers, and commentators have had their opportunity to consider Jack Layton from their particular perspectives, I would like to offer a brief salute to Mr. Layton that may be a little different in kind or in emphasis from the memorials of praise from others.

            Jack Layton was a professional politician. This does not mean that he could not have made considerably more money in some other profession if partisan politics had proved a dead end (just as many teachers and professors and general practitioners and pastors could “profess” some other calling, to their pecuniary advantage, if they so chose). Jack Layton knew he was a professional politician, and he respected those things that made professional politicians successful. He followed his plan of success, however, by abiding by a few simple rules:  be as honest as possible, treat those around you with respect and kindness, and try to approach your professional life with some sense of good humour, if not joy. In other words, Jack Layton did what all good professionals and good crafts persons and good business persons do. Most importantly, he approached his profession with forethought and good conscience:  intention is absolutely necessary for any virtue to be ascribed.

            But, you might say, have we not had many noble politicians in Canada’s recent past? One only needs to think of Stanley Knowles, Robert Stanfield, and even Ed Broadbent.  They were (and are) good persons. But they were good persons in a different political culture, one not so ideologically riven, one less negative, less slanderous, and less vicious. Furthermore, they did not bring a third party to major party and opposition party status. The moral high ground is easier if you lose (which is not to say that Mr. Layton fully won either).

            I supported Bill Blaikie in the leadership contest that Mr. Layton first won, and I was skeptical of Mr. Layton’s character and goals and tactics at that time.  I was wrong, not that Bill Blaikie is not a wonderful, moral person. But that too is the rub:  I favored Blaikie because I saw him as the most visibly moral candidate; I did not see him as a political winner, as a professional politician. This is a matter of “shame on me,” since I have spent much of my life trying to convince people that they MUST be political, in a partisan way. I have generally failed, despite my constant chiding of people who say they are “not political” with the retort, “then you are, in a democracy, immoral.”

            Jack Layton made practical politics respectable, something others should pursue with purpose and enthusiasm. Jack Layton saved, at least in a small way, in a small country, the ideal of politics in a democracy.