Manitoba MLA never left a loving word unsaid, colleagues say in tribute to Danielle Adams
MLAs mourn Thompson member killed in highway crash last December
A northern Manitoba politician killed in a highway crash late last year never hesitated to tell the people she loved how she felt about them, one of her colleagues said on Tuesday, as MLAs paid tribute to Danielle Adams.
Her fellow MLAs paid tribute in the legislative chamber to the life of the Thompson representative, who died in a crash while travelling to Winnipeg last December.
"That openness with her feelings was one of the best things about Danielle," NDP colleague Malaya Marcelino said in a tearful speech.
"She let the folks that she loved and cared about know exactly how she felt about them, and how and why she appreciated them. There was nothing left unsaid."
The legislature opened its spring sitting by devoting the first day to honouring current and former elected representatives who died recently, including three hours of tributes to Adams.
Tuesday marked the first time all MLAs could gather together in person since pandemic measures ordered some members to participate virtually.
Marcelino recalled that a few months after they were both elected for the first time in 2019, Adams told her that she was her "MLA bestie." Marcelino said she laughed at the time, thinking those words had never been strung together in a sentence before.
"That one funny turn of phrase … meant a lot to me then," the MLA for Winnipeg's Notre Dame constituency said Tuesday. "And since she's passed on, it's meant even more to me now."
Passionate advocate
Adams served as the NDP's critic on child care, housing, disability and poverty issues.
She fought passionately for those causes, Marcelino said, recalling that Adams once volunteered to act as a surety so a child-care centre could get a loan from a bank.
Adams would impress community groups with how well she understood their issues, Marcelino said.
"I remember one of the adult educators said this is the first time that they'd actually ever learned something or heard something they could actually use from a visiting politician."
Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson said her tenure as families minister was the period when she had the most interaction with Adams. They didn't always see eye to eye, Stefanson said, but she admired the NDP MLA's devotion to the issues and the people she represented.
"During her life, Danielle made a profound difference in the lives of Manitobans in Thompson and throughout northern Manitoba. She leaves behind a lasting legacy we can all admire."
'I knew she was special,' mom says
NDP Leader Wab Kinew said Adams could have been Thompson's MLA for 30 years if she wanted to, and there wasn't an area of the job she didn't excel at.
If the party was holding a caucus retreat somewhere, she'd book an extra day of accommodations before and after to hold meetings with child-care centres and anti-poverty and local housing groups, he said.
He revealed that Adams had a learning disability that made her job challenging. She spent hours practising the questions she'd quiz the government on, reworking drafts and examining every performance with her mother, Jody Levy. She said Adams had dysgraphia, which impacted her writing ability.
"Do you know why she set a goal to improve at speaking in this chamber?" Kinew said Tuesday.
"It wasn't because she was worried about embarrassing herself or about her ego or about her pride. She worked so hard at speaking in this chamber because she wanted to make damn sure that the people she represented had their stories come through clearly."
Her mother said the outpouring of condolences Tuesday affirmed what she already knew about her daughter, who worked hard and loved her family.
"I'm a mom — I knew she was special," Levy said. "This is a big confirmation today of how special she was to other people and how, even in the short time she was in the ledge, she's made a big impact."
While Levy said she's heartbroken over the loss of her daughter, she said their near-daily conversations always ended with the two of them expressing their admiration for one another.
"I know I didn't leave something unsaid," Levy said.
She added the family wants to ensure tragedies like Adams's death don't happen again. She said it took too long for emergency support to arrive, and the remote stretch of Highway 6 where Adams's SUV collided with a semi-trailer truck is too dangerous.
Later in the day, Kinew told reporters he's spoken about the issue with the premier and some Progressive Conservative MLAs.
Marcelino said Adams's death is a "indictment itself on the neglect that northern, rural and remote areas have faced for a long time" over health care, emergency supports and infrastructure.
"And if our caucus has been quiet up to date on these issues, it's been out of grief and not because we don't plan on doing anything about it — we will not be able to turn our eyes away from it, now or ever again."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
