A Thought for Paul Dewar

I was saddened to learn of the passing of former Canadian MP Paul Dewar on February 6th. Dewar succumbed to brain cancer, a diagnosis he received a year ago. He was only 56.

Dewar was the MP for Ottawa-Centre under the NDP banner from 2006 to 2015 spending much of tenure as the party's foreign affairs critic. He unsuccessfully sought the federal NDP leadership in 2011 and would lose his seat to Liberal Catherine McKenna during the Trudeau wave. Although defeated in the 2015 election, many in Ottawa-Centre fondly remembered him and paid tribute to him by putting up campaign signs on their lawns.

When I was active with the Ottawa Centre NDP during the 1990's, I got to know his mother Marian quite well. A former Ottawa Mayor and briefly a NDP MP from Hamilton, she ran under the NDP banner in Ottawa Centre in the 1993 federal election. I had quite an enjoyable experience canvassing with Marian and spending time with her socially. Unfortunately, she would lose to Mac Harb as the Liberals ended nearly a decade of Tory rule and the NDP was left in tatters. Plus ca change. 

I didn't really get to know Paul in the way I knew his mother. At that time, he worked a substitute teacher and I would see him around the occasional constituency meeting or during election time. I do wish I had got to know him better. Not merely because of the fact that would make his own imprint on politics in Ottawa and throughout Canada, but to have gained a greater appreciation and understanding of his passions and in the process gained a friend and perhaps become a better person for it.

Alas our lives are full of missed opportunities. These missed opportunities occur every single day of our lives. Sometimes these opportunities present themselves later while others aren't ever meant to happen. One cannot force things between people. The spirit of camaraderie develops naturally and over time. But when someone dies in the prime of their life it is equally natural to lament what could have been and a reminder that time is finite. R.I.P.