{"id":118275,"date":"2017-09-18T00:42:11","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T04:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=118275"},"modified":"2017-09-18T00:42:11","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T04:42:11","slug":"trudeau-honours-allan-maceachen-as-peerless-parliamentarian-at-n-s-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/09\/18\/trudeau-honours-allan-maceachen-as-peerless-parliamentarian-at-n-s-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Trudeau honours Allan MacEachen as ‘peerless’ parliamentarian at N.S. service"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MacEachen<\/a>
MacEachen (pictured) died last Tuesday. He was 96. (Photo: Library and Archives Canada)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ANTIGONISH, N.S.\u2014Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered a moving tribute to the late Allan J. MacEachen on Sunday, saying the former Liberal cabinet minister should be remembered as a key architect who shaped some of Canada’s most cherished institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bring the thanks of a grateful country,\u201d he told about 400 people gathered for a public memorial service at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S., the institution where MacEachen served as an economics professor before entering politics in the early 1950s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether they credit him or not, Canadians are living in the country that Allan J. built, and they like it,\u201d Trudeau said, referring to MacEachen’s nickname. \u201cLet us honour him by recommitting ourselves as Canadians to continuing his life’s work of hard things done well.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacEachen died last Tuesday. He was 96.<\/p>\n

As his memorial service began, the skirl of the bagpipes filled the auditorium, and MacEachen’s flagged-draped coffin was carried in by six Mounties in red serge. The ceremony also featured a Mi’kmaq smudging ceremony, a Gaelic prayer and traditional Celtic music, performed by fiddler Ashley MacIsaac.<\/p>\n

The prime minister bowed his head before MacEachen’s coffin as he took to the stage in a tartan tie honouring his own Scottish heritage.<\/p>\n

Like so many others who have recounted MacEachen’s many accomplishments during his 40-year political career, Trudeau made it clear that Canadians have the wily Cape Bretoner to thank for universal health care.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all enjoy health care because of our needs instead of our ability to pay because of medicare,\u201d Trudeau said, noting that it was MacEachen who, as health minister in 1966, used his \u201cpeerless parliamentary instincts\u201d to get the Medical Care Act through Parliament.<\/p>\n

The prime minister said MacEachen also helped bring in the guaranteed income supplement for vulnerable seniors, the Canada Pension Plan and key reforms to the country’s labour laws.<\/p>\n

Trudeau said MacEachen and his father, Pierre, were \u201ca match made in heaven,\u201d because they shared the same core values.<\/p>\n

Both men believed that all people are equal, \u201cdeserving of equal treatment under the law, equal opportunity to be whom we are, and to do with our lives what we choose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey believed in their bones that freedom and equality of opportunity ought to be every Canadian’s birthright.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Ontario premier Bob Rae, who ran for the federal Liberal leadership in 2006, said MacEachen was a funny, loyal and warm man with an incredible talent for delivering speeches.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe loved politics,\u201d Rae said. \u201cHe loved the battles. He loved the jokes. He loved the stories … All of us who had a chance to work with him … understood that while there was always an elusive, private quality to his personality, there was also a very deep love of what politics brought to his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rae said MacEachen’s life was an \u201celoquent testimony\u201d to the trials and rewards of public service, describing his former parliamentary colleague \u2014 and sometimes adversary \u2014 as a \u201cgladiator\u201d with a flare for the political stage, but a reserved private temperament.<\/p>\n

Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil said MacEachen, the son of a coal miner, was a \u201cchampion of social justice\u201d who never forgot where he came from.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the son of Inverness, Cape Breton,\u201d the premier said. \u201cHe was focused and dedicated to his community, his province, he country and its people. He had his fingerprints on some of the most progressive social policies of our time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amid the many laudatory tributes, however, there was also plenty of humour.<\/p>\n

Trudeau recalled how his father once wore a kilt when he attended a Cape Breton community event with MacEachen in the early 1970s. But the elder Trudeau forgot to bring his sporran, the small pouch that is typically worn around the waste and hangs in front of the kilt.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut as many of you know, the sporran serves a practical purpose, beyond the carrying of coins,\u201d Trudeau said. \u201cAs Allan J. recounted many years later … the absence of the sporran may have resulted in more exposure than my father’s communications staff had counted on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former prime minister Jean Chretien was among the honorary pallbearers, as was federal cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc and former Nova Scotia premiers Rodney MacDonald, Russel MacLellan and Gerald Regan.<\/p>\n

MacEachen is to be buried in Inverness on Tuesday following a funeral service in the church in which he was baptized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANTIGONISH, N.S.\u2014Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered a moving tribute to the late Allan J. MacEachen on Sunday, saying the former …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":118276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","category-politics","mauthors-michael-macdonald","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}