My Journey Read online

  How he came to work with Jack is a story in itself. Dan Leckie, you must understand, was a free spirit. After Dan Heap won his second term, in 1984, Dan Leckie took a year off and went to Italy with his Italian-born wife. Money, career, ambition: none of that factored in his life. His intention in going to Italy was to drink wine, visit art galleries and maybe admire the gardens there—for he was passionate and very knowledgeable about backyard agriculture.

  I knew from working with Dan and from his capable work with John Sewell that he was a perfect fit for Jack. “You have to hire Dan Leckie,” I told Jack one day, and I told him why. I described Dan as a much-loved man and a systematic thinker with good politics.

  “Okay, I’m interested enough to meet him,” Jack replied. “I’ll check him out.”

  “Well, it’ll have to be on the phone,” I said. “He’s in Italy.”

  But on the phone, it wasn’t Jack who interviewed Dan. It was Dan who interviewed Jack. Dan set down a long list of conditions under which he would work for Jack, and these had nothing to do with wages and hours. I repeat: Dan cared little for money, and he worked around the clock. One condition was that Jack not call a press conference for the next six months. What Dan had observed was Jack then being ruled by passion and instinct and a tendency to lead the parade before the parade had properly formed. Jack immediately saw how smart and sensible this man was, and he hired him before that phone chat had ended.

  For as long as Jack and I knew Dan (in my case, seventeen years), he was an integral part of our lives. Holidays often meant whitewater canoeing on northern Canadian rivers where the safe custom for Jack and me was to park the canoes in order to scout the rapids: the idea is to map out a route so you can run the rapids while avoiding rocks, ledges and impossibly high standing waves. In more challenging rapids, we would portage our gear ahead and run the rapids with empty canoes. This accomplished two things: if we did capsize in the rapids, at least we wouldn’t lose our gear downriver, and it’s a lot easier to run rapids with a lighter, more manoeuvrable canoe. And such scouting and planning reduced the likelihood of dumping.

  Dan Leckie took a different approach. He did love to plan ahead, but sometimes he would run through the highest and most dangerous water, come what may. He did not look like a lean, hard-muscled type at all, and in fact (Dan, you know this was so) he was a little plump—but he was strong. I have pictures in that ramshackle family photo album of mine and there he is, parked on a massive rock with a smile on his face while a northern river, in this case the Missinaibi (it flows into James Bay), courses wildly behind him.

  Dan had an MA in education, but that hardly mattered. You need only have conversed with him for a few minutes to know that the man was extraordinarily well read—and had the sharpest wit. He was a humble man, and a deep thinker and visionary. He once said, “Politicians come and go and so do political initiatives, but once you engage citizens and empower them to make a difference and embed the policy structurally into the administration, the changes will last and stand for a long time because they are rooted in the community.” I never forgot that.

  In his early days as school trustee, then chairman of the school board, these were a few of Dan’s causes: heritage languages, parental empowerment, neighbourhood schools, and putting an end to streaming (which sorted students into academic, general and basic levels). Many of these issues were ones that I would embrace as I continued my own political trajectory from trustee to councillor to member of Parliament. On all these matters, Dan Leckie was way ahead of the curve.

  Dan Leckie was a great friend to cycling in the city. In fact, both Dans were inner-city bike riders long before that became popular. When Jack Layton was a Toronto city councillor in the eighties and chairing the Toronto City Cycling Committee, Dan Leckie was active behind the scenes, and when Dan himself became a councillor a decade later, he chaired the same committee.

  Dan brought to the constituency office his flare as a writer (which is rare in political circles) and his optimism (which was contagious). He grew his own vegetables and herbs at home, and he was the kind of gardener who always found something to be thankful for: if the beans didn’t flourish, well at least he had lettuce. And if the garden didn’t produce a bumper crop, or some of the political campaigns faltered, it wasn’t because the effort wasn’t there, and anyway, at least many involved in the campaign learned from the process and emerged stronger and better prepared to make changes in the future.

  Dan also understood the importance of diverse opinions. Just as a healthy, vibrant garden or ecosystem requires diversity, he believed it was important to have different political voices at the table. I learned from him that a key ingredient of success is to bring diversity together—whether you are gardening, cooking a meal or getting things done politically. Just as different plants can complement each other, or diverse spicing can work in harmony (think of the combination of salty, sweet and sour in Thai food), so too can varying and opposing political voices, ideas and opinions work together for the common good. And if one plant fails, or one political idea falters, progress will be made if there are others there to take their place.

  Needless to say, Dan Leckie was both a very good chef and a very good organic gardener. I learned much from him politically, and I later learned to love and know gardening. Today my greatest extravagance is spending money on my garden to make it beautiful. One regret: I never figured out how to cook well. Perhaps one day soon.

  Dan Leckie was Jack’s best man at our wedding in 1988, and when Dan died tragically of a brain aneurysm ten years later, at just forty-eight years of age, Jack and I were overwhelmed with grief.

  At five o’clock one Tuesday morning in May of 1998, Dan was in the midst of writing a list (what else) when he was felled. He was taken to hospital, but he never regained consciousness. Jack and I rushed to the hospital, but there was nothing to do but wait. So loved was he at city hall that many of his friends and colleagues held a meditation circle, hoping that their energy, their good wishes and their prayers could somehow reach him. Six days later, on May 30, Dan died.

  Jack and I organized a visitation at the community centre on Cecil Street, right around the corner from our house on Huron. We put up huge photos on tall panels depicting scenes from Dan’s life so that people could walk through the places where he had been and write down reflections on how they had shared their lives with him. Dan at the school board, Dan at city hall, Dan on a bicycle, Dan in a canoe.

  A few days later, I helped put together a memorial tribute in the Brigantine Room at Harbourfront Centre, where Jack somehow managed to deliver a eulogy for his best friend. Gordon Cressy, then the president of the United Way of Toronto, talked about Dan’s contribution to the education of Toronto’s children. Then the singer and composer David Wall sang “Danny Boy,” whereupon everyone just lost it. At the end, everyone’s spirits were lifted by an idea that had come from Dan’s children, Patrick and Tina, then in their late teens. Their notion was that everyone present would hold up multicoloured ribbons that would connect all of us and signal our interdependence through our generosity of spirit.

  Dan Leckie’s death marked the end of an era. The Heap years, as I sometimes refer to them, were about more than inspiration. This period constituted my political training school. The two Dans were my mentors, but especially Dan Leckie.

  I learned from Dan Leckie how campaigns are run and how to approach public policy in a strategic way. At Dan Heap’s office, we focused on three key concerns: on jobs and protecting the garment industry, on peace and on a matter that I can perhaps be forgiven for taking personally—immigration and the Chinese head tax.

  A legendary figure, Dan Leckie played a transformative role on the left of the political spectrum. He wasn’t interested in yelling about what was wrong; he focused on where he could move things forward to advance change and social justice. Through Jack Layton’s office, Dan Leckie developed many groundbreaking initiatives that put Toronto on the map in terms of health, education and the environment. Bring Back the Don (a task force aimed at reviving the then heavily polluted Don River), the Toronto Atmospheric Fund (a revolving loan fund to help reduce climate change), the AIDS Defence Plan—that was Dan Leckie.

  Dan was Jack’s political soulmate when Jack was a city councillor. It was Dan who encouraged Jack to seek election as chair of the Toronto Board of Health, a position that Jack took on just as the AIDS epidemic was emerging.

  Dan taught me that good political leaders are a conduit between the people and public services, and that the best public policy decisions come through three streams: political leadership, professional public administrators and citizen engagement. Politicians and public servants are the employees of the people. Their job is to act in the people’s best interests. The people must be constantly engaged to understand what’s going on. It’s called participatory democracy.

  CHAPTER 5

  Into the Fray

  My question as a newly minted school trustee was this: What was going on, or not going on, in schools that would lead “average, normal kids” to stalk and savagely beat a man because of his perceived sexual orientation?

  I was twenty-eight years old and I had never been so scared in my life. I stood on a community centre stage in downtown Toronto and before some three hundred people made the case for my election as school trustee. I remember what I talked about, as I explained why I wanted to serve my community: I talked about value. The value of helping underprivileged children overcome barriers so they could get a better education. The value of heritage language classes to help second-generation children communicate with their parents in their mother tongue, allowing for the parental involvement that has been shown to improve academic performance. The value of curriculum that is relevant to
students’ lives and gets them engaged. The value of ensuring that no one fell through the cracks.

  From the outset, I was focused on helping students who were struggling, often the immigrant kids and the gay kids and the poor kids—the young people who had no say. As far as I could see, they were all outside, and I wanted to do everything in my power to bring them inside—to include them. The problem was that I had little to no power: I had to get elected first.

  I wasn’t the typical candidate for trustee—I didn’t have kids, I was younger than most, and I was probably the first would-be trustee in Toronto to have flunked out of Grade 3. I had studied religion and philosophy at university and trained to be an artist—I had never thought about having a career in politics. Jack Layton had written in his high school yearbook that he aimed to be prime minister one day. But there was no road to Damascus moment for me, no sudden realization that running for office was what I was meant to do. My entry into politics occurred organically, as I saw an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others.

  I had prepared for my speech as well as I could and I had packed the place with as many friends and supporters as I could muster. To fund posters and a modest campaign, I had taken out a personal bank loan. I had even taken one lesson with a speech coach, a professional actor. Stand straight, he told me, feet shoulder-width apart. Relax your shoulders. Think of a beautiful scene to calm your mind. Be natural with your arms and don’t rock back and forth. All the advice did help, but still my heart was in my mouth.

  I was taking a big chance with this run for office. I had left my job with Dan Heap to become a school trustee’s assistant, but I had to resign from that position in order to run as a trustee myself. That meant I had no income.

  So I was racked by nerves—but I believed I was ready for the job of trustee. I had grown up listening to my mother talking about teaching young children, and how some of them had no room in their homes to do homework, or they simply had no time since they were expected to tend brothers and sisters or help in their parents’ shops. I listened to my father talking about the schools he had inspected and what curriculum should be standardized. In the Chow apartment on Blue Pool Road in Hong Kong, education was the subject of dinner conversation and debate. In Canada, my own experiences as a high school student at Jarvis and Central Tech had shown me where the system needed to be improved.

  And while I was new to public speaking, I was no newcomer to the Toronto political scene. For the past four years, I had participated on different election campaigns, and worked for MP Dan Heap and then as an assistant for progressive school trustees Joan Doiron and Bob Spencer. And I had been mentored by former school trustee Dan Leckie as well as by Joan and Bob, so I was surrounded by talented, experienced people who wanted to make a difference and who knew how to make things happen.

  I also knew exactly what the job entailed: trustees presided over the primary and secondary schools and oversaw school board budgets, policies, personnel decisions, the use of school buildings and facilities, maintenance, relations with the community and matters concerning educational programs and curricula. I can do this, I told myself. I can contribute. I was a first-generation immigrant, and the issues of the day were vitally important to me.

  My speech in the community centre that day in the spring of 1985 went well, and I had a great campaign as part of a progressive slate of candidates that included Joan Doiron and me for the board of education, and two men for city council—Dale Martin and a guy by the name of Jack Layton. All four of us won in the election in November that year, by a wide margin. My career in public office was under way.

  Although our slate had won in downtown Toronto, progressive trustees were in the minority in the new school board and faced strong opposition for any challenge to the status quo. But that didn’t hold me back—I was determined to proceed in my first term on the board with the issues I held dear. Heritage languages, for instance.

  When I was in high school, I was struck by the fact that some of my Chinese-Canadian classmates who were born in Canada had difficulty communicating with their parents, who had been born in China. That meant their parents weren’t able to get fully involved in their schooling, and it also meant these second-generation students were not fully able to connect to their own heritage and culture.

  I knew instinctively—and research bore me out—how crucially important the mother tongue was for our increasingly multicultural population. Furthermore, being able to speak other languages enhances intellectual capacity, and is an advantage for all students, regardless of their mother tongue. But in those days, there were few options in the school system for languages other than English and French, so students who wanted to study their parents’ mother tongue had to take special classes, after school or on weekends. And for most children of immigrants, that seemed like a form of punishment as they saw other children playing games or sports while they had to study their parents’ first language. As well, parents care more about education when their children learn the parents’ first language at school. I began to make headway on this issue when the advantages for all became clear: one being that the children of English-speaking parents could acquire, say, Spanish or Mandarin, a big asset in a changing world. Gradually, international languages were integrated into the regular curriculum, and today, more than fifty-five languages are offered in Toronto’s schools.

  Another issue I began to tackle in my first term was “destreaming,” an effort to counter the practice of streaming students, based on the educators’ expectations, into three levels of schooling: advanced, general and basic. Many immigrant kids from poorer families ended up in “general and basic levels” schools, where they learned useful trades but were not challenged intellectually and had few incentives or opportunities to proceed with higher education and realize their potential. At the same time, kids from middle-class and wealthy neighbourhoods tended to be streamed into advanced-level schools.

  I understood that divide, for I had seen it unfold all around me. I was fortunate to be able to attend Jarvis Collegiate, an advanced-level school, but it was wealthy kids from the affluent Rosedale neighbourhood who made up the majority of the student population, not my neighbours in St. James Town, which was much closer to the school than was Rosedale. At Jarvis, the curriculum and academic standards were markedly different from Central Tech (a general/advanced-level school, where I had studied art in the evening) or Castle Frank Secondary School (a basic-level school located between Rosedale and St. James Town).

  How did students get streamed into the general and basic schools? And who were these students? Some of them had learning disabilities, or a genuine aptitude and appetite for the trades and education on offer. But many were streamed simply because they were the children of new immigrants and were seen as having few prospects. Some came from families where they were expected to work as much as possible and as young as legally allowed to contribute to the family income. For some kids, if your English wasn’t very good and you had just arrived in the country, you were streamed into a basic-level school where little would be expected of you. Some of these kids who could not yet speak English were plunked into special education classes. Learning wasn’t the problem; a new language was.

  Other students, from troubled, poorer families, struggled through Grades 7 and 8 and had much of their future determined for them when they, too, were streamed into a basic program. And a larger percentage of these students dropped out of school even before they turned sixteen owing to boredom, low expectations and an uninspiring curriculum.

  From my personal experience—and again, research bore me out—I knew that streaming students early on in their educational careers just limited their learning potential. It is difficult for some students to choose between being “good with their brains” (i.e., advanced level) or “good with their hands” (i.e., general technical level); for many, it may simply be too early for them to make that decision. But surely you can be good with both hands and brain?