Remembering a Humanitarian Giant
Stephen Lewis has gone to the angels.
How to even begin to describe the impact this man has had on the lives of millions? As a social democratic leader, broadcaster, and representative of Canada at the UN, a passionate fighter against AIDS in Africa, he was relentless in his fight to build a better world.
Let me tell you about the impact he had on me.
I was nine years old when my Grandmother called me into the house and made me sit in front of the television where on the flickering black-and-white screen, a young Stephen Lewis spoke in the Ontario Legislature. I had never paid any attention to politics but was mesmerized by his eloquence and moral force.
But it was the subject that my Granny wanted me to hear about. He was calling on the government to address the crisis of industrial illness in the northern mines.
The graveyards of Timmins were full of immigrant miners who died young from a multitude of industrial illnesses. I knew this fact firsthand because my grandmother, a mining widow, spent so much time in those lonely fields of the dead.
Timmins was full of such women. The widows had been abandoned by the industry, ignored by government, and left to live in a shadow existence in a town whose financial future depended on the silica-laden gold being blasted in the deeps.
As a little boy, I would sit with my Granny and the other widows as they gathered at the Woolworth’s lunch counter. Over grape pop and chips with gravy, I listened to their stories. Nobody seemed interested in what had happened to them or their loved ones. Yet here was this young, fiery politician speaking out about what had been left unspoken for so long.
“You listen to this man,” my Granny said. “He speaks for us wee wifies. Nobody ever spoke for us before.”
I never forgot that moment. It had a lasting impression on my perception of what politics should be.
It would be many decades before I could tell Stephen Lewis that story directly. In that time, I had followed his career of always being the one who would speak for those who had no political voice.
He served his country with honour. He served the world with passion.
Thank you, Stephen.
My deepest condolences to Avi and his loving family.
I'm glad he lived to see his son win the leadership of the NDP. I sense he was hanging on just for that.
What a beautiful story and memory for you <3