Political weaponry

Political weaponry
Layton's death has created a paparazzi-friendly partisan rally

A few brave columnists have said it, but now Quebec Premier Jean Charest has too: The untimely death of Jack Layton has been turned into a political weapon by Canada's left wing.

A rival politician named Amir Khadir, the co-leader of a Marxist and separatist party called Quebec Solidaire, just couldn't help himself.

Charest, like every other Canadian political leader, community leader, Rotary Club president and chess club president, had already issued a contrite statement of public grieving in the wake of Layton's passing.

Charest's was particularly generous, though he has rudely not yet agreed to dye his hair orange to trump Toronto's plan to bathe the CN Tower in the NDP's campaign colours. (Calgary, which has never elected an NDPer federally, shone orange lights on one of its bridges, just to beat the rush).

Maudlin displays of public grieving — by those who had little time for Layton when he was alive — are one thing. But to Khadir and his left-wing party, Charest's eulogy wasn't a generous, non-partisan remembrance of the death of a decent man. It was an opportunity for Khadir to score partisan points. He responded like he was heckling in question period.

Khadir — the boorish politician who noisily promoted a boycott against a shoe store in his riding because it dares to sell some shoes made in Israel — thought he'd turn Layton's still-unburied corpse into a political weapon.

In a ramble that likely only made sense to Khadir's fellow Marxists, he condemned Charest's eulogy, claiming Layton would want the premier to stop acting on behalf of "special interests, foreign investors and friends of the party," and that should have been mentioned in the premier's remarks. Gross.

But really, how much more crass has Khadir been than most of the Media Party? When it emerged NDP spin doctors have been crafting Layton's funeral plans for weeks, and even edited Layton's final letter to the public, the mainstream media didn't react with revulsion, or even indicate a distaste at having Layton's death turned into political theatre.

On the contrary, they were only too happy to play their assigned roles and read from the NDP's carefully crafted script. But what can account for Stephen Harper's sudden descent into this maudlin mania? What on earth caused Harper — the man who has restored the dignity of the office of the governor-general, who has brought back the tradition and sobriety of Canada's monarchy, who just this summer gave the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force back their proper names — to grant an official, state funeral to a man who, no matter how personally appealing, has never held high office in this country?

For heaven's sake, Layton's casket was put on a car and wheeled over into Quebec, then back to Ontario. It went on one last campaign tour. It's surprising no PCO protocol officers have quit over this bizarre indignity — not just to Layton, but to the concept of a state funeral.

Jack Layton had many admirable qualities. His death is a loss for his family and friends and those who saw him as a political champion. But that is different from being a matter of state — by definition, an order of authority and dignity that remains above the fashions of elected politics of cults of personality.

Charest is right: Khadir is a disgrace for using Layton's death as a political weapon. But so is our Parliamentary Press Gallery for beatifying a mortal politician.

And the greatest surprise is the Conservative government — a government whose respect for history, tradition and restraint has been wiped away by corrupting a state funeral into a paparazzi-friendly partisan rally.

EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY