Politics
Lincoln Alexander to lie in state Sunday at Queen's Park in TO

Credits: REUTERS/Gary Hershorn

QMI AGENCY

TORONTO — Canadians will get their chance to say so long to Linc.

Lincoln Alexander, Ontario's 24th lieutenant-governor, Canada's first black MP and cabinet minister, will be honoured during a week of tributes starting Sunday at Queen's Park in Toronto and culminating in a state funeral Friday in Hamilton, Ont.

Alexander, whose death at age 90 was announced last Friday, will lie in state in the lobby of the main legislative building.

Around 12:30 p.m., Sunday, Alexander will arrive accompanied by his wife Marni and members of the family where they will be greeted by Lt.-Gov. David Onley and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. Other dignitaries and invited guests will pay their respects through the afternoon until members of the public are welcomed between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.

The public will again be allowed to pay their respects between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Monday.

He will then lie in repose at Hamilton City Hall -- a city he represented as an MP for 11 years -- from Tuesday to Thursday with the public being invited to pay their respects between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. each day.

The state funeral is scheduled for Friday at Hamilton Place. Further details will be released later in the week.

Alexander, the son of a railway porter from St. Vincent and a mother from Jamaica, was born and raised in Toronto.

"I was born in 1922, at a time when blacks weren't recognized and when people thought blacks were born to be servants and porters," Alexander told Sun Media on his 85th birthday.

He served in the RCAF in the Second World War and graduated from Toronto's Osgoode Law School in 1953.

He was recruited by Progressive Conservative leader John Diefenbaker to run in the 1965 election but didn't win a seat until the next election three years later.

Them prime minister Brian Mulroney named him Ontario lieutenant-governor in 1985, a position he held until 1991.

He remained active in later years and was a figure often seen around Queen's Park and working charitable causes.

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