When Jack Layton died one year ago this month, Nathan Phillips Square became a focal point for the grief felt by millions of people across the country.
The thousands of chalk messages that filled the square in the days following his death were a testament to the former NDP leader’s uncanny capacity to connect personally with Canadians, and became iconic images of a politician’s rare ability to inspire.
On the anniversary of Layton’s death, August 22, his family and supporters will return to Nathan Phillips Square for a more organized tribute honouring his life, put together by the Broadbent Institute. While details of the event, dubbed Dear Jack: A Celebration, are still being worked out, Jack’s son, Councillor Mike Layton, says it will feature music, short speeches from those who knew him, and incorporate posts from the Dear Jack online memorial project.
In an interview with NOW ahead of that poignant anniversary, Mike Layton talked about the Dear Jack project, challenging Canadians to honour his father’s legacy, and how his family is faring one year later.
Have you been paying close attention to the Dear Jack project? Are there any messages that stand out to you?
Oh yeah, I’ve been reading the website and keeping an eye on what’s been going on there, and reading people’s messages.
There’s a couple of different kinds of messages. Some are very much, ‘we miss you, we miss your smile, we miss your voice in Ottawa.’ And then some of them are saying, ‘Jack, you meant so much to us, we’re going to keep the fight alive’ kind of thing, people posting what their interpretation of the “Love, Hope and Optimism” message is, and how they’re brining that to their own life.
There’s a lot of young people going on, saying ‘you got me interested in voting, you gave me hope about how politicians act in Ottawa.’ That’s really the touching part because hopefully that will stick with people throughout their lives, that we can dream of a better future for the world.
When Jack died, there was a tremendous outpouring of grief here in Toronto, with people taking over Nathan Phillips Square and writing messages for him in chalk. Do you think something similar will happen this year?
You know, I’m not sure. That’s what we anticipated might happen, and that’s why Dear Jack came about because really what we wanted to do was allow people across the country to share their message of “Love, Hope and Optimism” with one another… It’s sort of like an online chalk board, an online Nathan Phillips Square to populate with messages.
We anticipate that might be happening again at Nathan Phillips, we’ll just see what happens and go with it.
Will the event be a political one? Are you hoping to celebrate Jack Layton the politician, or Jack Layton the man?
I don’t know if you can separate the two. Part of Jack’s legacy was his ability to work with others across political lines and actually affect political change because of that. I think that’s what’s being encouraged, we’re not trying to be overly political. It’s just trying to bring that message of Love, Hope and Optimism back, and [ask] folks, what have you done this year to contribute to that kind of political change?
I’m sure that many people will be thinking of Jack this month, but also of his family. Can I ask, how are you and the rest of the family doing?
We’re doing alright. We all have been spending a lot of time together this summer, and that’s what we would have done anyhow. I’ll be getting married [on August 25] as well, so it will be a very close time for family to come together, to both celebrate life and then they’ll, I’m sure, be a little bit of [remembering] loss.
But the fact is, he gave us pretty specific instructions, lofty instructions, about what we were to do with the rest of our time on this earth, and I’m just happy that I can reflect back on a year when I worked as hard as I could… to bring life to his words. That’s the best we can do.
Most people, when they lose a loved one, don’t have to mourn them in public. Does it ever feel strange to share his memory with so many people? Do you wish the process was more private?
Jack was never a private person. He… was a public figure for as long as I can remember. It would just seem different not to have people around us celebrating his life, because that’s how we always celebrated things, very publicly.
