Tears For Our Times: DOUCET

By Clive Doucet

I don’t normally weep at concerts. In fact, I can’t remember it ever happening before, but this week it did.

The tears just coursed down my face from the opening tune. It was a little embarrassing and I felt obliged to hunch over in my seat so it would be hard to see my face.

Afterwards I wondered why. Initially, it wasn’t hard to understand. Former NDP leader and Toronto city councillor Jack Layton and I were political buddies. We were from the first moments I was elected to Ottawa City Council, when I looked around the table and realized two fairly important things. Despite a life-time spent working in all things urban, I knew little about how city council actually worked, and secondly, no one on council looked or sounded like me.