The last living member of the B.C. NDP’s predecessor party has died.
Frank Mitchell, long-time MLA for Esquimalt, died on Sept. 15 age 95.
After serving in the Second World War with the Canadian Merchant Navy and then an infantry paratroop division, he first won election at the age of 25 in 1951, running for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. He won again a year later, then was defeated in 1953.
Mitchell started a career with Esquimalt police, serving as a police officer, firefighter and ambulance attendant, as needed. He returned to politics, losing in 1975, but winning in Esquimalt for the NDP in 1979 and 1983, before retiring in 1986.
Minister of Children and Family Development Mitzi Dean, who now represents much of what was Mitchell’s riding, paid tribute to him in the legislature Thursday. She said he and his late wife of 68 years, Kay, were a driving force for the NDP in the region for generations.
They laid the groundwork for an organization that has held the riding in various configurations for much of the past half-century.
Dean credited Mitchell with preserving the Esquimalt Graving Dock and fighting for Lampson Street School, seniors housing, the highway to Sooke and what became Veterans Memorial Parkway.
“His fingerprints can be seen throughout the Esquimalt-Port Renfrew corridor,” Dean said.
Mitchell’s succcessor, Moe Sihota, recalled him as a mentor to whom he owed his political career.
Sihota, the first Indo-Canadian elected provincially or federally in Canada, said Mitchell and his wife worked hard to overcome reservations in the community about the race issue and he was invaluable in Sihota’s first campaign and subsequent ones.
No service is planned.
