Nearly one thousand people gathered at Nathan Phillips Square Wednesday evening to mark the first anniversary of Jack Layton’s death.
Billed as a celebration of the late NDP leader’s life, the event featured a star-studded lineup of musicians and actors, as well as the reappearance of the iconic hand-written chalk tributes that sprung up on the pavement outside City Hall following his death last year from cancer.
While a who’s who of NDP heavyweights mingled in the crowd, including Layton’s successor Thomas Mulcair, Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, and former leadership candidate Brian Topp, none of them took to the stage.
Instead the politicians left the microphones to entertainers like Ron Sexsmith, Jason Collett, and Raffi, something that event emcee Jian Ghomeshi said would have been just fine with Layton.
“Jack would love this, it would be his favourite thing,” said Ghomeshi, a CBC Radio host and longtime friend of Layton’s. “Seeing a crowd of thousands, having Canadians perform on stage, having people sharing ideas. He would love this.”
While a screen flashed messages posted online to the Dear Jack website, performers took turns reading aloud from Layton’s famous final letter to Canadians. In the crowd some people hugged, and a few shed tears.
Lorraine Segato capped off what was an otherwise subdued affair with an upbeat rendition of Rise Up, a song she also sang at Layton’s state funeral at Roy Thompson Hall.
In a private ceremony earlier in the day, Layton’s family interred his ashes at the Toronto Necropolis cemetery under a headstone sculpted by his widow, Olivia Chow.
His son, Councillor Mike Layton, told reporters it had been a difficult morning.
“I was sad this morning, it was an emotional time,” Layton said.
“But when you come back here and look at the messages people are putting up, it again gets me to that place where I’m feeling very proud about all my dad accomplished.”
An hour before the event kicked off, Chow walked along the wall outside City Hall where supporters had already scrawled hundreds of messages in Layton’s memory. Followed by a mob of reporters, as the late summer sun beat down on the square Chow wrote her own message to her husband “Alive in our hearts,” it read.
Chow said Layton would have enjoyed the tribute, but that the notoriously hardworking progressive politician wouldn’t have savoured it for long.
“I think Jack would have loved the music, loved the people, and [he’d] say ok, stop mourning and go out and make a difference,” Chow told reporters. “Get back to work. Party tonight, but work together to create a better Toronto, a better country, because it is possible.”
Later, addressing the crowd from onstage, Chow delivered a personal message to those in the audience and across the country, where similar tributes were organized in cities from coast to coast.
“I want to personally thank you for making it possible to get through this very tough year. There were difficult days and traumatic moments. I’ve experienced times that have tried me to the core,” she said.
“It has been your connections and your belief in Jack’s values that have allowed me and my family to get through this year, and I thank all of you, because I’m forever indebted to all of you.”
She urged Canadians to fight for better healthcare, a more equitable economy, and protecting the environment.
In the square, Layton’s supporters shared their own memories of a politician who had an extraordinary ability to make personal connections with strangers.
“He was just different. He was very affable when you met him, very bright, and very sincere. That’s what I remember,” said Lucy Falco, who met Layton several times over his political career, which he began as a Toronto city councillor in the 1980s and peaked with him leading the federal NDP to its first stint as the opposition in 2011.
Falco recalled the morning she heard that he had died.
“I was at work, and I was a mess. All day,” she said.
“It is sad. My tears are sitting right in the corners [of my eyes],” said Sandra Cardinal, a school vice principal who remembered Layton asking her opinion about the education system when he ran into her on the street.
“Unbelievably, the first thing that came into my mind [after he died] was, oh my god, I hope he left us something,” she said. “And then I opened the paper and he had left us something: the letter. He had left us something really special.”
