Crossing the aisle

Stephen Harper recalls a conversation with Jack Layton during June’s filibuster.

They chatted about a number of different things, he said, some personal and some political. “I don’t mind telling you that I could see at that point that he was a much sicker man than he had been before the election. That was very obvious to me,” the Prime Minister recalled.

“And of course, we were also right in the middle of a big parliamentary battle,” he said. “It was pretty emotional, and we were at loggerheads. But even at that moment, with the big personal challenge he had in front of him and with the big political battle we had going on between us, he was just still full of optimism and goodwill and that’s what I will remember.”

This would seem to be the same conversation observed at the time in this sketch.