Thousands say farewell to Layton
Posted Aug 24, 2011 10:16 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Thousands of mourners an hour filed into the Parliament buildings to pay last respects to Jack Layton Wednesday.
The closed casket of the NDP leader is lying in state in the foyer outside the Commons.
Among the mourners was former governor general Michaelle Jean, who says she admired Layton’s tenacity as he worked for society’s most vulnerable people.
Layton will be honoured with a 15-gun salute on Thursday, when his remains leave Parliament Hill for the last time.
The state funeral will be Saturday in Toronto. The exact route has not been released at this time.
The service is expected to last about an hour. Former NDP leader Ed Broadbent has been announced as one of the pallbearers. Rev. Brent Hawkes with the Metropolitan Church will be presiding.
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 NDP says, in classic Layton style, there will be unique elements to his funeral, the details of which will be released at a later date.
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.
State Funeral
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 says the PM offered Layton’s wife MP Olivia Chow the option of the state funeral and she accepted.
On Monday evening, Harper confirmed the state funeral through Twitter and added that “Canadians will have an opportunity to salute Jack Layton’s contribution to public life.”
The Layton family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the recently-announced Broadbent Institute, a left-leaning think-tank.
