Like most Canadians, Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mungall said she was shocked to wake up on Monday morning to reports of Jack Layton`s death.
“I heard a voice saying, ‘Oh, no,’ and I thought maybe a bear had got into our garden or something,” she said on Monday.
“The NDP is a very strong movement — Jack didn`t just leave the party a better place but all of Canada, too,” she said. “We (the NDP) are not going to let him down.”
Former federal NDP leader Layton, 61, died Monday morning after battling cancer for several months.
Mungall said she first met the NDP leader in Calgary during the 2002 G8 summit. She was walking down the street with him when they were approached by a homeless man who said he wanted to go home to Toronto.
“Jack immediately started making phone calls and soon had a bus ticket and made arrangements for support to help the young man rebuild his life,” she said. “He was never too busy to roll up his sleeves and get to work for somebody.”
It was at a function at Layton`s home that Mungall told the man who would go on to become the leader of the official Opposition that she was thinking of running for a seat on Nelson’s city council.
“That conversation turned into a full strategy session,” she said. “I’ve kept that campaign advice close to my heart ever since. It has never failed me.”
She said words can’t do justice in explaining what Canada has lost with Layton’s death.
“I’m of the view that we just lost our next prime minister,” she said. “And I think he would have gone down in history as being the greatest prime minister we ever had. For Jack, everyone had value and deserved support to reach their full potential. And he would have done it all in a fiscally responsible way, too.”
Mungall said his creativity and dynamic energy inspired many Canadians and especially young people.
“What he did was unifying — he put the separatist movement in Quebec aside so that we could work together as a country.
“I’ll never forget the words he said to me not so long ago — I’m so proud of you.’ ”