Final farewell begins for Layton
Posted Aug 24, 2011 7:39 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NDP Leader Jack Layton began his final trip to Parliament Hill Wednesday, where he will lie in state.
The hearse carrying his casket, draped in a Canadian flag, left Rosa Morrison Funeral Home in Toronto at around 2:00 a.m. MST headed for Ottawa, accompanied by a police escort.
Once there, his body will lie in state for public visitation Wednesday and Thursday in the foyer outside the House of Commons.
A state funeral will be held on Saturday at 12:00 p.m. MST at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto.
On Tuesday, the NDP released the official information for the funeral, as well as procession information to Ottawa. A viewing will be held at Toronto City Hall on Friday.
On Saturday, the casket will make the kilometre-procession from City Hall to Roy Thomson Hall with a mounted patrol.
The service is expected to last about one hour. Former leader of the NDP Ed Broadbent has been announced as one of the pallbearers. Rev. Brent Hawkes with the Metropolitan Church will be presiding.
According to the Globe and Mail, U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/Aids and close family friend, Stephen Lewis, is expected to give the main eulogy.
Layton’s love of music will be front and centre at the service. Lorraine Segato will sing her band The Parachute Club’s 1980s hit, “Rise up,” and Quebec singer Martin Deschamps is hoping to perform at the funeral as well.
Screens will be set up at Toronto’s Pecaut Square for the public to view the state funeral.
After the funeral, Layton’s family will spend an hour at the reception and then drive to a private internment at an unknown location in Toronto. Layton will be cremated.
The first internment will be for ceremony purposes. There will be a second internment at a later date for just the immediate family.
Some NDP MPs are going through extraordinary measures to get to Parliament Hill. Chris Charlton is coming in from Germany and Nikki Ashton is cutting her honeymoon short to fly in from Greece.
A state funeral is traditionally offered only to current and former governors general, current and former prime ministers and current members of cabinet; however, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the PM offered Layton’s wife MP Olivia Chow the option of the state funeral and she accepted.
The Layton family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the recently announced Broadbent Institute, a left-leaning think-tank.
Layton died Monday morning at the age of 61, following the charismatic politician’s second bout with cancer.
