Stephen Lewis died Tuesday in Toronto. He was 88. The former Ontario NDP leader, Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, and global AIDS advocate had been battling cancer. He died days after watching his son Avi win the federal NDP leadership from his hospital bed.

His sister Janet Solberg put it simply: "He waited for his son to win. I'm not joking. He never lacked for willpower."

The Lewis dynasty

The Lewis family has shaped the Canadian left across three generations. Stephen's father David Lewis was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, one of the key architects of the NDP's founding in 1961, and served as federal NDP leader from 1971 to 1975. David coined the phrase "corporate welfare bums" during the 1972 election — a line that still gets quoted half a century later.

Stephen took the Ontario NDP from a third party to the Official Opposition in 1975, winning 38 seats on a campaign built around rent control and tenant rights. He was 25 when he first won his seat in the Ontario Legislature.

And now Avi leads the federal party. Three generations of one family leading the same political movement is without precedent in Canadian politics. That Stephen held on long enough to see the torch passed makes the moment all the more significant.

Bigger than his party

Stephen Lewis never became premier. He resigned as Ontario NDP leader in 1978 after the party lost Official Opposition status. But what came after provincial politics dwarfed what came before.

In 1984, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointed Lewis as Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations. A Conservative Prime Minister selecting a former NDP leader for one of Canada's most visible diplomatic posts. That kind of cross-partisan respect still exists in Canadian politics, though you have to look harder for it now. Mulroney saw what Lewis's opponents in Ontario had seen for years — the man was one of the finest orators and most serious minds in the country, and he belonged on a bigger stage.

Lewis went on to serve as Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and then as the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. He co-founded the Stephen Lewis Foundation in 2003 and spent years fighting a pandemic that the world was largely content to ignore. His 2005 Massey Lectures opened with a line that still cuts: "I have spent the last four years watching people die."

He was named one of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World and received the Companion of the Order of Canada. He collected 42 honorary degrees. But the work in Africa is what defined his later life, and it is what he will be remembered for most widely outside of Canada.

The sparring partners

Lewis belonged to an era of Canadian politics where opponents engaged each other seriously. For years he appeared weekly on CBC Radio's Morningside alongside Dalton Camp, the legendary Progressive Conservative strategist, and Eric Kierans, a former Liberal cabinet minister. The three of them argued about politics every week and were friends. That kind of exchange — left, right, and centre, sitting together and actually listening to each other — feels like it belongs to a different country now.

Mulroney's appointment of Lewis to the UN was the most visible expression of that mutual respect. You can disagree with a man's politics entirely and still recognize that he has something to offer the country. Mulroney understood that. Lewis understood it from the other side. The country was better for it.

A life well lived

Stephen Lewis gave the NDP something beyond seats and policy platforms. He gave it moral seriousness. His father built the party. Stephen gave it a conscience. Avi now has the task of recapturing that conscience for the NDP — something most recently and profoundly held by Jack Layton. The foundation is there, laid across three generations of a remarkable family.

Lewis was married to journalist Michele Landsberg for over sixty years. They raised three children: Ilana, a human rights lawyer who co-founded the Stephen Lewis Foundation; Jenny, a casting director; and Avi, who now carries the family's political legacy forward.

Canada has lost one of its great public figures. Whatever your politics, Stephen Lewis made you listen. That is rare enough to be worth mourning.

UPDATE: The NDP has released a statement confirming that Lewis died peacefully in Toronto while under hospice care. His wife Michele Landsberg, daughters Ilana and Jenny, and his sister Janet were with him at the end. Avi Lewis, newly elected leader of the NDP, is travelling to Toronto to be with his family.