In memorandum

I've had a lot of thoughts and emotions since I woke up at 10am yesterday to a text message informing me of Jack Laytons passing. I find it surreal that due to my inconsistency as a blogger only four posts ago I explained why I voted for him. On many levels Laytons death feels like a death in the family, as a person who came of age in the new millennium it feels as though he's always been around. He expanded his party's relevance within the nation exponentially without compromising any of the things it stood for. He helped Canadians across the nation to see that a country is only as successful as it's least successful person, that a nations survival depends on the ability for all it's people to survive. He was a populist and a pragmatist who seemed as approachable as that teacher you had who always had the classroom in stitches and who always came across as more of a friend than an authority. With Layton you felt if you saw him you could just go say hello and start a conversation. He was a multi linguist and brilliant mind who never lost touch with the people he came from. In the eighties as a city councilor while everyone else was trying to make sense of the new gay cancer he was doing everything he could to help it's victims. Down in the states meanwhile Reagan hadn't yet acknowledged it's existence. Layton was pragmatic, he knew tax cuts to the rich would hurt the poor more so than services to the poor could hurt the rich. He believed that no matter your income you deserved access to the highest quality healthcare and education the country could offer you, that no one deserved to go hungry or cold. He believed women, gay, transgender people, ethnic and religious minorities were not something for the country to tolerate but rather what makes the country's heart beat. He wasn't a perfect man but he tried with everything he had in him to stand up for the mandates he was given. He was relentless in fighting for what he knew to be right. He had integrity, a quality rare in humanity and almost non existent in politics. The world lost one of it's strongest voices of reason, may his voice never be forgotten. May his party carry the orange torch high in his memory.