A Biopic of Jack Layton Could Be in the Works

According to The Globe and Mail, CBC is looking at producing a televised biopic on the life of Jack Layton, the recently deceased NDP leader. Olivia Chow, his wife and an NDP MP, has apparently given Pier 21 Films permission to recreate her husband's life, from growing up in Quebec as the son of a Tory cabinet minister to his decades as a Toronto city councillor to his tenure at the helm of the New Democrats.

While most Canadians have no problem with the CBC dramatizing Layton's life for posterity, I think Andrew Coyne raises a good point on Twitter today when he wondered why CBC hasn't bothered to pursue biopics of other leading political figures, notably John A. Macdonald. (Our guess is that CBC couldn't afford the booze budget required to make that movie historically accurate.)