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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 270

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
January 29, 2024 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 270 - Jan/29/24
Mr. Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, NDP)
  • Jan/29/24 3:19:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by extending my condolences on behalf of all New Democrats to all those who loved Ed Broadbent: his partner, Frances, his family and his many friends. I also want to take a moment to thank the Prime Minister and Canadian Heritage for yesterday's state funeral. It was a fitting tribute to Ed and his incredible life, and I want to thank everyone who helped organize it and participated, particularly the Broadbent Institute. I shared this story at the funeral, and I will share it again. Every time I was at an event with Ed, I could see him in the crowd when I was speaking, and I would always take a moment to invite people to applaud the legendary Ed Broadbent. I am not sure he always wanted that type of attention, but I did it anyway. I also took a moment to say, looking him right in the eyes, “Ed, you are who I want to be when I grow up.” Ed, as a very generous and compassionate person, would laugh as if it was the first time I had said it. Initially it was maybe a bit tongue in cheek, but every time I said it, I meant it more and more. I wish and I hope Ed knew how much I meant that. The reason I meant that I wanted to be Ed when I grew up was that I looked at Ed's life, and he had spent it in public service. He committed his life to a clear vision of building a fair, more equitable world. He believed in that vision with his entire heart, and he dedicated his life to that vision. If we look at what he did, he was elected as a member of Parliament from the auto worker town of Oshawa by a huge margin of 15 votes. When he won, he went on to run and win as leader and then served for almost a decade and a half as the leader of the party. That would be a great political journey and was a significant contribution, and he could have called it a career, but that was not enough for him. After having served as leader and retired, many years later he was asked to run again. Folks in the House will understand what it is like to be a previous leader and be asked to run again. However, he agreed, under Jack Layton, to run again, and he won a seat in Ottawa Centre as a member of Parliament once again. When he finally took his retirement, again one would say he had done his service. He had fought for working-class people the way he wanted to. However, it was not enough for him. Most of us could think of lots of ways to spend our retirement, but in his retirement, Ed then founded an institute in his name. He did not just found the Broadbent Institute; he was an active participant, constantly finding ways to push forward and grow the institute so that it could be a place for working-class people, a place for activists and a place to train the future leadership of the movement. He was persistent in his clear pursuit of a vision of social democracy, but that is not all: On top of being very active with the institute he founded, most recently he wrote a book, again laying out his vision for social democracy. This is why Ed is who I want to be when I grow up; he never stopped giving back, and he dedicated his life to a vision of a better world. He made it clear what a better world would look like. Ed Broadbent believed in democracy, but for him democracy was not just the idea of having the right to vote; the political right or the civic right was not sufficient, not good enough. One also had to have the true elements of democracy, meaning people needed to have economic equality, economic justice. That meant we needed to have the right to vote but also to be able to earn a good living, to be able to have a safe place to call home, to be able to get to and from the polling station in safety and to be able to participate meaningfully in society. He was a true believer in democracy, in all of its elements. Ed also made it clear that he was not satisfied with New Democrats just being the conscience of Parliament. He made it absolutely clear that he wanted to be prime minister. He believed that we needed to use our power in this place to make life better for working people. Ed Broadbent believed that the government's power needed to be used for good, to deal with the most powerful and protect the most vulnerable. He believed that we needed to ensure that Ottawa was working for the people and not for the billionaires. He did not just want to be Parliament's conscience. He wanted to be Prime Minister. He did not engage in a false debate over whether to choose between respecting his principles and winning elections. He thought that it was necessary to do both. In fact, the only way to win was to show Canadians a policy based on principles that put their interests first. As we mourn the loss of Ed Broadbent, we are also committed to pursuing his work. His legacy is the conviction that Canada can and must do better. I want to talk a bit more of the legacy that he left behind. Back in 1989, almost 35 years ago, in the chamber, he put forward a motion to rid Canada of child poverty. At the time, nearly a million kids in our country were suffering child poverty. He thought that, in a country as rich as ours, that should not be the case. That was something he put forward, and it was voted on unanimously. I think many people thought it was just a proposition or a values statement, but for Ed, he believed fundamentally that that is the work of government, to make sure people are protected and to use the power we have to lift up the people around us. Sadly, there have been some advances, but there have also been a lot of steps back. To this day, right now, there are still a million kids that, according to many reports, are living in poverty. UNICEF put out a report that for the first time, in 2021, the rate or number of children in child poverty was increasing. This should give us some serious pause. It really reminds us that the legacy of Ed Broadbent's work is that we must continue to fight hard. Another thing about Ed is that he would never have said that Canada is broken. He would say that Canada needs to do more, can do a lot more and must do more to lift up the people around us. He was committed to that.
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