Funeral | Service held for first Acadian governor general

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By ALISON AULD
The Canadian Press

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MEMRAMCOOK - Romeo LeBlanc's son gently rested his hand on his father's flag-draped casket and said goodbye to a man remembered by many for his abiding humility despite a life of lofty political successes.

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The Canadian Press

Dominic LeBlanc looks over at the flag-draped casket of his father, former governor general Romeo LeBlanc, in Saint-Thomas Church in Memramcook on Friday.

Dominic LeBlanc told hundreds of mourners who filled Saint-Thomas Church on Friday that his father was deeply proud to serve as a federal cabinet minister, senator and as Canada's 25th governor general.

"The country has lost a devoted Canadian who did his best to serve with humility and compassion," he said under the 169-year-old church's vaulted ceilings.

But the younger LeBlanc, who represents his father's riding in the House of Commons, also remembered him as a devoted family man who put his children first.

"Many of you have lost a dear friend, and my sister and I have lost our father. Dad, we love you," he said before bowing his head and laying his hand on the casket.

In his eulogy at the state funeral for LeBlanc, former prime minister Jean Chretien said he first knew his old cabinet colleague as a journalist working for the CBC, describing him as a man who was "informed, deliberate and smiling."

"I never met anyone who did not like him," Chretien said during the almost two-hour service.

Canadians from all walks of life, among them some of the country's leading politicians, business people and academics, paid their final respects to LeBlanc, the first Acadian to be named to the vice-regal post.

Dignitaries, including Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, began arriving for the funeral two hours before the Roman Catholic mass began.

Former cabinet minister Marc Lalonde, who recruited LeBlanc to serve as a press secretary for then prime minister Lester Pearson in the '60s, said his old friend never let Ottawa change him.

"He was very much a man of the people without any ostentation, without any pretension," he said before the service.

"He was a humble servant of the people."

Lalonde was one of dozens of honorary pallbearers, including Chretien and his wife Aline, and Liberal MP Justin Trudeau, who marched slowly along the small hamlet's main street as a handful of local residents watched.

With sprawling farmlands as a backdrop, a military band played a mournful lament as the procession made its way to the church under dreary, grey skies.

Fisheries officers lined the procession route, a tribute to LeBlanc from his time as fisheries minister in Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau's cabinet in the 1970s.

LeBlanc died June 24. He was 81.

Brian Tobin, a former Newfoundland premier and federal Liberal cabinet minister, said LeBlanc always put the interests of his constituents first, devoting considerable energy to improving the lives of fishermen and promoting the Acadian culture.

"He was absolutely selfless and somebody who never forgot where he came from and whom he was in Ottawa to serve," he said outside the building where LeBlanc lay in state before the funeral. "An extraordinary man."

LeBlanc left his mark on the federal government as fisheries minister and became a senator in 1984, before he was appointed governor general in 1995. Senator Marcel Prud'homme called him a champion for fishermen and "Mr. New Brunswick."