I’m honoured to stand and say a few words on behalf of my colleagues in the Liberal caucus on the life and work of Mitro “Mac” Makarchuk, the former member of provincial Parliament for Brantford.

Mac, as described by his younger sister, Lisa, was a true character, an inveterate and generous party thrower and partygoer and a genial rabble-rouser. I think that legacy is still alive and well in this place today for a few of our colleagues.

Mac was born in northern Saskatchewan in 1929 to parents who emigrated from Ukraine. Growing up through the Great Depression, like so many others, their family was poor, and Mac would recall always being hungry for lunch. I’m sure that these experiences no doubt played a formational role and were a formational aspect of his future political ideologies.

From his humble beginnings growing up on his parents’ farm, he left his family at the age of 17 to embark on a new chapter, one where he could grow, learn and make his parents proud.

Mac had an eclectic professional life, to say the least, I think. He served in both the navy and the air force, which I’m sure made the rivalry games very difficult for him. He was a boat builder; he was a journalist; he was a Brantford alderman; and of course, he was a member of provincial Parliament.

At one point, Mac was even a budding sports executive, offering to underwrite a collegiate hockey championship between the western Canadian champions and the eastern Canadian champions. In true western form, Saskatchewan’s native son convinced the Huskies to accept the offer, but it was the Toronto Varsity Blues who turned him down, and so the championship never got off the ground.

Out of all of his professional work, Mac’s entrance into public life, into politics, I think is the most interesting. Certainly, how he first became an NDP candidate was very interesting when I read about it. As a journalist, Mac was assigned to cover the local NDP nomination race. Well, as it turns out, there was no candidate in the nomination race, so when he showed up he put his name forward, and he won. He then went back to work and wrote the story about his victory for the newspaper. I’m sure that’s the kind of press we would all like to get every once in a while for ourselves. So that’s how his journey with the NDP started, in the 1965 federal election. He ended up losing that election, but that was just the start of Mac’s journey in politics.

He became the provincial NDP candidate in the following year’s provincial election and was successful. In fact, he was still working at the Expositor newspaper at the time. He asked for a leave of absence to run the campaign. They refused, and so they fired him. Well, he ultimately won that election for MPP in Brantford in 1967, and after he won, crowds of people went to the head office of the Expositor and chanted, “You fired him, and we hired him.” They were chanting outside the newspaper in celebration. I think that’s a brilliant way to start off your political career. And certainly he had a great deal of success.

He served one term as MPP and then served on Brantford city council as an alderman in 1972. He eventually returned to the Legislature in 1975 and was re-elected again in 1977, eventually leaving this place in 1981. Throughout his time, Mac never failed to speak up for his constituents, either here at the Legislature or at city hall.

Outside of his professional life, he loved to travel the world with his wife, Carolynne, and he always enjoyed a nice glass of wine and fine dining.

To his loving wife, Carolynne; his sister, Lisa; his brother-in-law, James; his nieces, Tanya and Michele; and his nephew, Darwin: Thank you for sharing Mac with the people of Ontario.

Rest in peace.