One didn't have to go far in Toronto to run into Jack Layton. Over the past three decades Jack personally crossed paths with tens of thousands of people. I'd like to share a few of my own experiences working with Jack on a variety of political projects and activities in Toronto. None of them were electoral campaigns.

Toronto City Hall

I was in my mother's kitchen when I heard the news on the radio: Jack Layton has lost his battle with cancer.

I was juicing watermelon and pineapple for my mother. She is a survivor of laryngeal cancer who can eat no solid foods. I was shocked, but I wasn't surprised: I'd seen Layton's July press conference, his face already a death mask. I stopped what I was doing, steadied myself against the kitchen counter and just felt terribly, terribly sad.

The new Sun TV "news" Network seems to be lacking credibility from top to bottom.

Cross-posted from Catch 22 Harper Conservatives.

Op-ed by John Deverell*

As Chantal Hebert points out so very clearly in today's Toronto Star, the moment of democratic choice for Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party of Canada finally has come. 

It's precipitated in the Ontario federal riding of Vaughan where ubercop Julian Fantino has volunteered to carry the Harper Conservative banner in an upcoming by-election.

Today,  the House of Commons formed a virtual lynch mob demanding  the resignation of NDP MP Libby Davies for saying that the Israeli occupation began in 1948.  She was punked by a phoney blogger who was trying to trap her into saying something unacceptable.  Libby has been an outspoken critic of Israel since she visited Gaza and saw the horrors that Israeli is inflicting on the people there.  In her usual quiet courageous way, Libby is one of the few members of Parliament speaking for Palestinian rights and representing the thousands of Canadians who believe that Israel does not deserve the support of Canada.