"No leave, Mr. Speaker."
With those four words, spoken by a single in a legislative chamber, Canada was forced to hear hundreds of thousands of voices. Today, that man died.
This morning, very shortly after a minor earthquake here in the Ottawa region, I was checking my Twitter feed, and a reporter in Yellowknife who I follow was the first on my feed to announce that Elijah Harper, former MLA and MP from Manitoba, and the speaker of those words, had passed away today. Suddenly the giddiness of the quake gave way to sadness and nostalgia, but also to pride and a sense of gratefulness. I was only 9 years old when Elijah Harper rose in the Manitoba Legislature and effectively ended the Meech Lake accord, but I knew even then that he did it for a good reason. Aboriginals had been ignored in the constitutional process (I didn't understand the details, but my parents are news junkies, and there was no escaping the knowledge that this thing, whatever it meant, was happening). Elijah Harper and his eagle feather symbolically announced that Canada has THREE founding nations...not two. Elijah Harper underlined that point for all to see.
Thank you, sir...
...Wish you were here.
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