When Banu Khan, a family physician in Botswana, first met Stephen Lewis, he was affably distributing papers and water to participants at an HIV-AIDS leadership conference two decades ago.
Dr. Khan had been newly appointed leader of her country’s response to the devastating epidemic, and was still putting names to faces. “I’m just a dogsbody,” the man with the water told her, using the British slang for servant, “doing what I’m told.” She assumed he was a regular volunteer and went off to find her seat.
When the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa was called on stage for his keynote presentation, her mouth fell open with shock. The man at the podium was Mr. Lewis. He searched her out in the crowd and winked.
“We had a good giggle,” Dr. Khan said, and became friends.
Dr. Khan shared the memory from Gaborone, the Botswanan capital, a few hours after she learned that Mr. Lewis, 88, had died in a Toronto hospice, eight years after being diagnosed with cancer.
Former politician and social activist Stephen Lewis has died at the age of 88. Lewis spent a lifetime fighting for causes close to his heart – and his weapons of choice were words.
The Canadian Press
As news of the prominent humanitarian’s death spread Tuesday, politicians who knew him from his early days as leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, grandmothers who worked with him in Africa, and Canadians inspired by his passionate, deeply personal calls for social justice all offered similar accounts of his humility and charity, as well as his ability to make someone feel seen in a room, to ask a question and then truly listen, however lofty his title.
Prime Minister Mark Carney paid tribute to Mr. Lewis for moving millions with his appeals for a compassionate and just society during his work as a member of the Ontario Legislature, leadership of the Ontario NDP and service as Canada’s United Nations ambassador.
In a statement, Mr. Carney said Mr. Lewis was a “pillar of compassionate leadership in Canadian democracy and a renowned global champion for human rights and multilateralism.”
Mr. Lewis was, indeed, a dogsbody in the most noble sense of the word, always going where he was most needed and looking for ways to serve vulnerable populations, his friends said. But he was also a savvy and persuasive voice in places of power, reminding wealthier countries and institutions of their larger moral obligations, especially to the victims of the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Senator Mary Coyle, one of the founding members of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which Mr. Lewis established with his daughter, Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, praised his activism as a feminist who elevated and supported women.
“He was a person who lifted others up,” Ms. Coyle said.
As vice-president and director of the Coady International Institute at St. Francis Xavier University, she approached Mr. Lewis about helping in Africa after hearing him speak. Within months, a contingent from the school was travelling to Botswana, where Mr. Lewis introduced Ms. Coyle to Dr. Khan, and set them off working together – the kind of networking, and friendship-building that made him so successful, Ms. Coyle said. “I never got a hint of ego,” she said, “which is rare for leaders.”
She did see him frustrated and angry sometimes, when solutions came too slowly. “Why don’t they get it?” he would ask, usually followed with, “Here is what we can do about it.” He wasn’t someone to waste energy, Ms. Coyle said.
Mr. Lewis speaks at a news conference as then-NDP leader Jack Layton looks on, in Quebec City on Sept. 8, 2006.JACQUES BOISSINOT/The Canadian Press
Among its programs, the Stephen Lewis Foundation supported the community work of African grandmothers and prompted the formation of “grandmother” groups across Canada and internationally. It was a testament to his belief in grassroots power, said Dr. Khan.
Unlike some other foreign support work, she said, his foundation didn’t attach strings to its assistance “You know what you are doing,” she recalls him often saying, “tell us how we can help.”
Beverly Suek, a member of Winnipeg’s Grands ’n’ More group, travelled to South Africa with Mr. Lewis about seven years ago. There, they joined grandmothers marching to secure pensions, and visited a school where the students, most of them afflicted with HIV-AIDS from birth, were sitting in chairs at desks funded by the foundation’s effort.
Making a real difference was important to Ms. Suek, whose son was one of the first Canadians to die of AIDS, and she said she saw that with Mr. Lewis. “Most of us just sit around and talk and moan about [problems], but he actually made it happen,” she said.
As his health worsened, Ms. Coyle said, he slowed down but didn’t stop. Last spring, though frail and requiring a walker, Mr. Lewis, who was Jewish, stood for an hour protesting the destruction and death in Gaza in his former riding of Scarborough West, according to a May, 2025, photo posted by his son, Avi Lewis.
Ms. Coyle and Dr. Khan said he often spoke of the strength and support he received from his family – his wife, journalist and social activist, Michele Landsberg; his daughters, Ilana, and Jenny Lewis, who, according to a family statement, were with him at the end; along with his sister, Janet Solberg. He lived to see Avi, who was flying to Toronto to join his family Tuesday, become Leader of the federal NDP just days earlier.
By then, he had been in hospice care for four weeks, Ms. Solberg said. “He waited for his son to win,” she said. “I’m not joking. He never lacked for willpower.”
Despite all the horror and tragedy he saw over his storied career, and his dismay, Ms. Coyle said, at more recent political developments, that willpower sustained an enduring optimism. He once called Canada “a buoyant county,” and often spoke of the hope he saw in the younger generation.
“He had such faith in humanity,” Ms. Coyle said. And the lesson he leaves us with in these difficult times, she suggested is this: “Be daring. Step up. Make something good happen and bring others along with you.”
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