Jack Layton (July 18, 1950 - August 22, 2011)

I'm not inside my own mind today... and my hopes for Canada have sputtered with the passing of a passionate Canadian today.

It's not that I'm so cynical to believe there is not another individual fit to run this country. I just don't believe that individual, whoever he or she may be, is active in politics at the national scale at this time. I thought Jack Layton was the real deal, and with his passing now I am not sure what the future holds for Canada.

I wasn't always a Jack Layton supporter. With first impressions, I found him boring and uninspiring. I compared him to the old man that goes to church every Sunday. Before the 2011 election. Jack Layton was just another part of the broken system that I have come to despise and with his passing I feel virtually doomed for Canadian politics. How could one man turn it all around with one election? I don't know... maybe I was so desperate to feel hope for a better Canada and I, and many other Canadians, put that hope on Jack Layton's shoulders.

He lost his battle to cancer today. I send my condolences out to his family and loved ones. I'm sure this news was unexpected, but maybe those closest to him had braced themselves for the worst. I knew he was having health troubles in the last election and his cancer came back but you would never have known it.

For a man who was battling as hard as he was to show as much passion and fire for Canada during the last election it was frankly refreshing to see a politician that believed what he was saying in his heard as opposed to every single speech Stephen Harper has given in the past 6+ years where every word he says has been meticulously selected for the desired effect. That effect destroyed by his robotic mannerisms BUT I digress... I will not turn this into a Stephen Harper shit show...

For a man battling that hard to come out and give it his 110%. To come so close to that goal and then succumb to this. It's awful. Jack Layton was inspiring during the last election and I'm sure the opposition would call it what they would 'strategic voting'. It's bullshit. Canadian's rallied behind a man they believed in and that man was Jack Layton... Canadian's also rallied behind our favorite robot, Harper... ether way it was Canada's choice.

I will remember Jack Layton for that passion he brought to the last election. If he had shown it the election previous, I would have stopped throwing my vote at the Green Party so that I could take solace in the fact that I voted at all. It was that passion for Canada that attracted Canadians. Crazy how that works isn't it? Voting for a man who projects genuine interest in the country I live in and the people who populate it? That's fucked up...

He leaves the NDP party in the best shape it's ever been in. I don't know but I just get the feeling by the next election that the NDP will have lost that. Whoever they pick to succeed Jack Layton will need to have that same fire. The attitude and dare I say swagger that they want what's best for Canadians, not for Canada or "their" Canada. Jack Layton will leave behind the legacy that he did what he had to in an impromptu election and it got the NDP the most seats in the house they've ever had. THAT is Jack Layton's work right there. Nobody else in the NDP has created that kind of movement because they didn't try to speak to Canadians the way Jack Layton did. They didn't try to resonate with Canadian's the way Jack Layton did.

Layton showed me that a politician just needs to try to reach the hearts of his voting base. That's basically what Obama did. If the Conservatives didn't put their entire strategy into the "bashing the liberals" basket, and it having worked so well. Maybe Layton would be the prime minister as more Canadians would have been able to see what Layton was all about rather than Canadians making assumptions based on the ads that Conservatives spammed over TV for months... anyway I digress again.

Rest in Peace, Jack Layton. You will be missed.