Jack Layton: Is he Dead?

Jack Layton: Is he Dead?

Inside Television 567
Publication date: 8-26-11
By: Hubert O’Hearn

This requires careful writing, certainly more careful than Christie Blatchford - whom I generally like - demonstrated in an excremental column in the National Post a few hours after Jack Layton died. Blatchford essentially sneered with up-lifted nose at all the public mourning for a ‘private man.’ Given that the man in question was a flamboyant career politician, I’m not quite sure where that private bit enters into the equation.

No, I have my criticisms, but neither rest with either the man nor the mourners, but rather the media. But give us a moment to properly set the scene. I first became aware of Layton when I lived in Toronto in the mid-80s. He was a properly radical city councillor in a city and a time that encouraged such things. It may be hard to remember, but Jack Layton first became prominent during the time David Crombie was Mayor. Among many radical accomplishments, Crombie and Layton pursued and achieved a limit on building heights in an attempt to prevent over-development in the downtown and preserve the city’s cultural and architectural heritage. Crombie actually ran for the Federal leadership of … the Tories. As I say, it can be hard to remember.

The other thing about Layton is that he was a sexy beast. Peter Mansbridge won’t tell you that, but I will. There are only three great mustaches in Canadian history: Louis Riel, Burton Cummings and Jack Layton. The art of being sexy is in not trying, and if Jack happened to put on a bicep gun show while riding his bicycle, well that was just coincidence. One of my best friends in Toronto had a massive crush on Jack. My friend happens to be a gay man. My sister had  a massive crush on Jack. She happens not to be a gay man.

When Layton ran for the federal NDP leadership, it was very much a toss-up between Jack and the equally honourable Bill Blaikie, a good and true MP from Winnipeg who was supported by Ed Broadbent among others. I thought at the time that if the NDP ever wanted to break through the mid-table as it were, hoping for minority Liberal governments they could influence, they needed to take a gamble. They did, and the lifelong councillor who had lost two - two! - campaigns for MP was suddenly the leader.

Most of that story you’ve heard on CBC, CTV and Global. You’ve seen the guitar-playin’, speech- makin’, cave-wavin’, beer-pullin’ son of a gun. But you haven’t heard the Why and that is my argument with the coverage. All three networks have used eithere xactly or closely this phrase: ‘He was liked and admired by all, regardless of your views of his political opinions.’ Which were what? That question is left barely answered.

I did  not hear the appropriately corporate elite pundits mention once that Layton advocated that the Alberta Tar Sands be immediately shut down - I concur. God knows his opinions on corporate tax policy and preventing the off-shore drift of capital have not seen the light of day since his death. They ignored his role in convincing Jean Chretien to stay the hell out of Iraq.

Incidentally, the comparable - as they say in the real estate trade - to Layton would appear to be Chretien, le petit gar from Shawinigan. Well, Chretien showed up in Ottawa in the mid-60s, an impoverished young lawyer who lived on an MP and Cabinet salary for 20 years (no great shakes in those days) yet when he quit the Liberals in a huff after losing the leadership to John Turner in 1984 he’s miraculously accumulated enough spare scratch to buy himself a chunk of a private golf course. I rather doubt if Olivia Chow, Jack’s widow, dines often in the member’s only room at a Layton-branded country club.

The point is - the mourning is pure, heartfelt and deserved. But if you cared about the man at all, when the body is buried on Saturday, don’t add an extra shovel of dirt for his ideas. Be seeing you.