Ed Broadbent died last week, Robin Sears writes:
That an unassuming working-class boy from Oshawa grew into a pivotal figure in Canadian life and an international statesman is a testament to Ed Broadbent’s skill and determination, but also to Canada. Ed was an unlikely, beloved Canadian political leader. Trained as an academic, he was recruited as a New Democratic Party candidate in 1968.
Broadbent’s great strength was that he straddled the two worlds of his blue-collar, auto-assembly home town of Oshawa — a.k.a. the Detroit of Canada — and his academic life in nearby Toronto, partly because he believed that if he could inhabit them both, they were not really divided. Not everyone agreed – he made his political champions in the United Auto Workers wince when, at his nomination meeting, he quoted C.W. Mills, a leading American sociologist, at length.
But that juxtaposition of political theory and its practical application — Broadbent’s intellectual residency in the Venn overlap between abstract principles and implementation — was what defined him as a politician. He didn’t care about winning for its own sake, he cared about winning for everyone else’s.
He was a politician much different than those who practice that art today:
Broadbent was a passionate man beneath his softer, smiling public demeanour. He cared deeply about the abuse of those not able to defend themselves on Canadian reserves, on Canadian streets, and internationally. He was an addicted cigar smoker until he had to quit; loved a glass of good wine and an evening of spirited discussion with friends. He loved jazz and fine art and travel. His private life was marked by deep loss, not once but twice he lost beloved partners. Married three times in total, with two children, he always picked himself up and moved on. Even in these last years of his life, he had found a new partner who brought him joy.
Broadbent cared less about winning and more about doing the right thing. His ilk is hard to find these days.
Image: Policy Magazine
4 comments:
It was with great sadness that I learned of Ed Broadbents passing over the weekend. I was raised in Oshawa and spent my entire public school and high school there even graduating grade thirteen and starting on the G.M. line two days after graduation. Such was life in Oshawa at that time in the early seventies. As a young U.A.W. member at the time we all knew Ed and he was hero to the working class especially the young and uninitiated union members. My father although a superintendent in G.M. and no longer the rank and file respected him to no end and recognised the loyalty to working class people of Oshawa and beyond. I can honestly say that as a man now of seventy years of age, Ed Broaddbent had shaped my entire political outlook and my social conscience to that of believer in rights for all especially the less fortunate.Men like Ed Broadbent come along very infrequently and never when you truly need them most.
he was a rare individual, zoombats. His like does not come our way often.
The NDP actually stood for something and had a constructive role in CDN politics under Broadbent, and his predecessors.
RIP Ed.
I agree absolutely, PoV.
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