Warren Allmand remembered as 'firm believer in inclusion and rights for all'

Friends and family paid tribute Monday to Warren Allmand, a respected human rights advocate who represented Notre-Dame-de-Grâce for more than three decades as Liberal MP.

He died earlier this month at age 84. 

Hundreds attended his funeral at Saint Patrick's Basilica in Montreal, where he was remembered as a man who spent his life fighting for social justice.

Senator and former journalist Jim Munson described Allmand as a man who was "principled, focused and cared for others."

He was "a firm believer in inclusion and rights for all," Munson said.

​Munson also revealed another side of Allmand's personality, the fierce hockey player who wasn't afraid to keep his elbows high.

"He could skate and skate and skate. As in politics, as in life, he never wanted to stop. And that's why we love Warren," he said.

First elected as an MP in 1965, Allmand served as a cabinet minister during some of the headiest moments in Canadian history.

As the federal solicitor general he dealt with the aftermath of the October crisis and later testified before the Keable commission. 

But his most significant achievement in federal politics will no doubt be his tabling, in 1976, of the bill that abolished the death penalty in Canada.

"Capital punishment, simply because it is immoral and useless, must be fought and defeated if we are to become a world society in which our descendants can live in peace and justice," Allmand said in a speech to Amnesty International the following year. 

Aside from his time as solicitor general, Allmand also served as minister of Indian and northern affairs and later as minister of consumer and corporate affairs. 

• Read his full obituary here.