Former MP, whose tenure set Orléans record, dies of cancer
Tributes poured in on the weekend after news broke that former Orléans MP Royal Galipeau had died of multiple myeloma. He was 71. “Royal was always a true gentleman and was a passionate voice for Orléans as a city councillor, library board member and M.P.,” Mayor Jim Watson said on Twitter.
Bryan Michaud, Galipeau’s executive assistant as an MP from 2011 until 2015, announced that his “friend and mentor” died peacefully Saturday afternoon from complications of the disease. His family has asked for privacy, Michaud said.
“For all the stories, your human side, your generosity and your tenacity, thanks Royal Galipeau!” he wrote.
A longtime Liberal who worked for MPs Mauril Bélanger and Eugène Bellemare, Galipeau switched sides and ran in 2006 for the Conservatives in a longtime Liberal stronghold.
When Galipeau, then the vicechairman of the Ottawa Public Library Board, announced in May 2005 that he was seeking the Conservative nomination, he said he was running because a Conservative government would be enhanced by the election of qualified French-speaking candidates.
He defeated incumbent Marc Godbout, and captured the seat again in 2008 and 2011, becoming the first Conservative to be re-elected in Ottawa-Orléans in 136 years.
Galipeau held the seat until the 2015 Liberal sweep and served as a deputy speaker of the House of Commons. Even after he was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, he was upbeat in an interview with the Citizen and said he never stopped coming to the House for votes, although he joked that he had cut down on the bean suppers.
“Even when I was flat on my back in the hospital bed, I returned phone calls in the morning and the afternoon,” he said.
He’d previously served as councillor for the former Gloucester and was a tireless proponent of light rail and French-language services.
Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod said she and her husband, Joe Varner, who worked on Galipeau’s 2011 campaign, were saddened to learn of his death and said their hearts go out to his wife, Anne, and family.
“Rest peacefully, People’s Servant,” she wrote.
Abdul Abdi, who ran as a Conservative in Ottawa West-Nepean in the 2015 federal election, took to Twitter to thank Galipeau for his service. “I will always remember Royal for his kindness, thoughtfulness and for his old school sense of humour,” he wrote.
James Moore, a former industry minister in the Stephen Harper government, recalled Galipeau as “a proud Canadian, historian, staunch defender of Canada’s official languages and a passionate public servant.
“He will be missed,” Moore said.