‘WORLD IS A POORER PLACE’
The family of former federal minster Warren Allmand follows pallbearers after his funeral at St. Patrick’s Basilica on Monday. Mourners spoke glowingly of a dedicated public servant and humanitarian who remained active until his final days. Jesse Feith ha
As Liberal Senator Jim Munson took the train from Ottawa to Montreal on Monday morning, he watched the sunrise at 7:39 a.m. and wondered how many times Warren Allmand had taken the same early morning train and seen the same scene.
The longtime Liberal MP always split his time between the two cities, Munson said, never forgetting his Montreal roots as his responsibilities continued to grow in the nation’s capital.
“Well today in Ottawa, at 7:39 a.m., our national flag at the Peace Tower is lowered to half-mast in his honour,” Munson said on Monday, speaking to hundreds of mourners who had gathered for Allmand’s funeral at Montreal’s St. Patrick’s Basilica.
Allmand, a dedicated public servant and humanitarian who oversaw the abolition of Canada’s death penalty, died last Wednesday after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour earlier this year. He was 84.
Before being sprinkled with holy water, a Canadian flag was carefully unfolded and draped across his wooden casket Monday.
And though his political accomplishments were celebrated — he represented the Notre-Dame-deGrâce riding for nine consecutive terms, from 1965 to 1997 — Allmand was also remembered as a family man who helped raise three children.
His only son and oldest child, Patrick, spoke of his father as a cultured man who taught him how to skate and ski, from the T-bars on Mount Royal to the trails of Jay Peak. Summer weekends were spent swimming at the family cottage on Lake Champlain, Patrick said, with his younger sisters Julie and Robin.
“He was active until his last days,” Patrick said, speaking of how Allmand ran three Montreal marathons in his 40s and ran a half-marathon two years ago. He also played hockey, a passion of his for his entire life, until his last year.
“We loved him and we will miss him terribly,” he said.
During his time as an MP, Allmand served as solicitor-general, Indian affairs minister and consumer affairs minister in governments led by former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Long a human-rights activist, Allmand tabled a bill to abolish Canada’s death penalty in 1976.
He was a reformer, an internationalist and a humanitarian, said Désirée McGraw, speaking of how she had always considered Allmand a role model.
“He was a good man, a great public servant and a giant member of our community,” McGraw said.
Quick-witted and bursting with energy, she said, Allmand attacked every challenge with equal enthusiasm.
“He had a rigorous, creative and orderly mind full of questions, ideas and opinions. He was unconventional and unorthodox. No detail or task was too small, yet no mission was too big.”
In 2005, Allmand returned to politics to serve as a Montreal city councillor and oversee the implementation of the city’s charter of rights, which he helped draft.
“He was a man of tremendous integrity, a very principled man and very principled politician who sacrificed on a personal and political level to vote his conscience,” said Côte-des-Neiges — Notre-Damede-Grâce borough mayor Russell Copeman outside the service. “The world is a poorer place without him.”
Until the very end, Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion added, Allmand never stopped fighting for human rights.
“There are many human beings today who are better off because of him,” he said.
Despite the serious issues he championed throughout his political career, from ending capital punishment to fighting for aboriginal rights, those who knew him well spoke of his lighter side. Laughs were shared across the pews at the mention of his “unique interpretation” of the chicken dance and his penchant for joining in during singalongs.
And though he knew him from covering Parliament Hill as a reporter, Munson later encountered Allmand through another one of his passions: hockey and the sometimes friendly, sometimes fierce competition that came with it.
“He could skate and skate and skate,” Munson said, recalling him rushing down the ice with his elbows out and eyes focused. “As in politics, as in life, he never wanted to stop.”
At an old-timers hockey game last week, he said, the players all stood together and chanted Allmand’s name as loudly as they could before taking to the ice.
“It was the least we could do,” Munson said. “Play on, Warren Allmand, play on.”
He had a rigorous, creative and orderly mind full of questions, ideas and opinions. He was unconventional and unorthodox.