Broadbent to be honoured with state funeral in Ottawa

Broadbent is the first party leader who was neither prime minister nor leader of the opposition to receive a state funeral.

Published Jan 15, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 3 minute read

Ed Broadbent acknowledges the crowd after winning the Ottawa Centre riding in the federal election. Broadbent died Jan. 11 at age 87. Photo by Errol McGihon /POSTMEDIA

It’s been more than 20 years since Ottawa has had a state funeral like the one announced Monday for former NDP leader Ed Broadbent.

Broadbent, who died Jan. 11 at age 87, spent 25 years as an MP including 14 years as leader of the New Democratic Party. For most of his career, he represented the riding of Oshawa-Whitney, but served as Ottawa Centre MP from 2006-2008. In 2011, he founded the Ottawa-based Broadbent Institute, a think tank dedicated to “building a Canada that is just and equitable” with “egalitarian social democratic values” as a guide.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that the state funeral will take place Jan. 28 in Ottawa, with further details on the arrangements to come.

State funerals are usually held for prime ministers and former prime ministers and for members of cabinet who die in office. But the prime minister has discretion to offer a state funeral to “any eminent Canadian,” according to Canadian Heritage, the ministry responsible for organizing state funerals.

The last state funeral in Ottawa was in 2002 for former Gov. Gen. Ray Hnatyshyn and before that, former Gov. Gen. Roland Michener in 1991.

Pallbearers carry the casket of former Gov. Gen. Ray Hnatyshyn in 2002, the last time a state funeral was held in Ottawa. Photo by Rod MacIvor /The Ottawa Citizen

Ottawa was the site for a national commemorative ceremony for the late Queen Elizabeth in 2022, and the year before, for her husband Prince Philip.

Not all state funerals occur in the capital. Toronto was the site for Canada’s most recent state funeral, that of former prime minister John Turner in 2020. Toronto also hosted the state funerals of Finance Minister John Flaherty in 2014 and Jack Layton, Leader of the Official Opposition, in 2011. Layton was the first leader of the opposition to be given the honour.

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Broadbent is the first party leader who was neither prime minister nor leader of the opposition to receive a state funeral.

“With Ed, I think there’s a real empathy felt for him across the political spectrum,” said Joel Harden, the NDP MPP for Ottawa Centre, who counts Broadbent as one of his mentors. Appropriately, Harden was taking a break last Thursday and reading Broadbent’s latest book, Seeking Social Democracy: Seven decades in the fight for equality, when an aide came in to say Broadbent had died.

“He’s in the pantheon of the elders, like the elder Trudeau, like Diefenbaker and Pearson,” Harden said. “The figures that shaped the country. I think that’s what’s being acknowledged here.”

According to Canadian Heritage, a state funeral “provides an opportunity for the public to participate in demonstrations of national grief.”

The format is developed in consultation with the family and may include elements such as a lying-in-state, a procession, funeral service and post-committal reception, with some elements open to the public. Flags are lowered to half mast.

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Throughout the process, the government says it makes “every effort to accommodate the wishes of the family” who may even decline the offer of a state funeral, if they wish. That’s what the family of former Supreme Court Justice Bora Laskin did when offered a state funeral by then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Laskin, the family said, “liked things very simple.”

Laskin was honoured with a lying in state on Parliament Hill, a separate honour from a state funeral, that has also been given the Canada’s Unknown Soldier when his body was repatriated from Vimy, France in 2000 and Sgt. Ernest “Smokey” Smith, Canada’s last Victoria Cross recipient in 2005.

The first state funeral in Canada was given to Thomas D’Arcy McGee, killed by an assassin’s bullet on Sparks Street in 1868. In 1891, Sir John A Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, was also the first prime minister to be accorded a state funeral. Lord Tweedsmuir was the first governor general to be so honoured, in 1940.

Different from state funerals, national commemoration ceremonies are held to honour special Canadians, members of the Royal Family, or other nationals deemed to have an impact on Canada. In addition to the Queen and Prince Philip, the Queen Mother was accorded such a ceremony in 2002 while former South African Prime Minister Nelson Mandela was honoured in 2013.

An online book of condolences for Ed Broadbent is available on the Canadian Heritage website.

Former NDP leader Ed Broadbent at his home in Ottawa, Monday Aug 21, 2018. Broadbent contributed a card for an Ottawa Citizen project on Paul Dewar. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia

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