Another honour for Layton considered

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This article was published 25/08/2011 (5322 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Several eminent Canadians — including a former prime minister — have endorsed the idea that Jack Layton be given the title right honourable posthumously in recognition of his service to Canada.

Former Progressive Conservative prime minister Joe Clark, who visited Parliament Hill Wednesday to pay his respects to Layton, endorsed the idea.

“Yes, I think that’s something the prime minister would want to consider carefully,” he said. “I’m not familiar with all the precedents, but I don’t think there would be one that would hinder it.”

Among the rarest and most prestigious of all Canadian titular honours, right honourable is normally reserved for prime ministers, governors general and chief justices of the Supreme Court.

But former prime minister Brian Mulroney in 1992 granted the title to a number of Canadians who never reached Canada’s three top offices.

Author John Ralston Saul, who spent seven years at Rideau Hall while his wife, Adrienne Clarkson, was governor general, and is the series editor of the Extraordinary Canadians biography project, said bestowing the title on Layton is a way of “sending a message to history” to remember a politician who brought honour to politics.

“It would be a very nice statement,” he said. “There are gestures that are about now, but it’s always nice if there is something which is a sign for all times.”

Right honourable is rooted in Canada’s history as a dominion of the British Empire. In Britain, the title is given to all privy councillors and cabinet ministers. For 100 years after Confederation, the title was extended to Canadian prime ministers and governors general who were named members of the Imperial Privy Council in London.

Former prime minister Lester Pearson changed this in 1968, when he decided the title would be automatically bestowed on prime ministers, governors general and chief justices.

The convention was changed again by Mulroney. During the Queen’s visit to celebrate Canada’s 125th birthday in 1992, Mulroney took the unprecedented step of giving the title to half a dozen people who hadn’t held the country’s top three offices, including longtime opposition leader Robert Stanfield, Jack Pickersgill and Paul Martin, Sr.

“These were people of accomplishment who contributed mightily to the country as we knew it then,” Mulroney said Wednesday.

He said Layton’s father, Bob, was an “outstanding gentleman” who served him ably in cabinet, and “in Jack’s case, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Jack was an exceptional and outstanding individual and public servant, and he deserves all the honour that surrounds him in death.”

Mulroney would not say whether Layton should be given the title.

“These are decisions for the prime minister. I did it in another time.”

The idea got enthusiastic support from the Historica Dominion Institute, the largest independent organization dedicated to Canadian history, identity and citizenship. Adding the five letters Rt. Hon. to Layton’s name would have a big impact on how he is remembered, said Jeremy Diamond, the institute’s director of development and programs.

But Christopher McCreery, Canada’s leading expert on titular honours, says it’s not possible to bestow the title on Layton. The designation cannot be given posthumously, he said. “The problem is you have to be alive,” said the author of six books on Canadian honours.

— Postmedia News