OTTAWA— For Jim Prentice, it was a spur of the moment plan – a quick flight to the Okanagan for a last round of golf before season’s end, dinner and home again.

Today, the Prentice family is in mourning and Canada’s political establishment grieving.

The Cessna Citation jet carrying Prentice - the former Alberta premier and longtime federal cabinet minister - and his golf mates back to Calgary crashed soon after take-off from Kelowna airport in densely wooded terrain. There were no survivors.

Prentice had travelled to Kelowna Thursday with Ken Gellatly, a Calgary optometrist, his regular Tuesday golf partner and father-in-law to Prentice’s daughter Cassia, along with another golfing friend aboard the small private jet.

RELATED:

Prentice was destined for more, but unsure how to get there: Wells

Timeline of the career of the late Jim Prentice

The two Calgary families were close and now are reeling.

Jay Hill, Prentice’s close friend and former Conservative cabinet colleague, said in an interview Prentice was scheduled for a knee operation shortly.

“Knowing Jim, he was trying to get one last round of golf in before winter hit, squeeze it in somewhere nice, before he had this operation on his knee” to mend an old hockey injury. Since losing the Alberta election in 2015, Prentice was enjoying life and his two grandchildren more, playing trains with his grandson, and golfing plenty.

“It just seems so unfair,” said Hill, heartbroken at the loss of his friend who had left a lucrative private sector career to return to Alberta politics, drawing Hill with him. “We just had a great 60th birthday party for him” in July, on a sternwheeler riverboat on the Glenmore Reservoir in Calgary. Friends had flown in from all over.

Hill was with Prentice's wife Karen Friday as the RCMP came knocking with sad confirmation of the news they knew to be true. Her husband had not been answering his wife’s cell calls for hours.

“Words cannot begin to express our profound shock and heartbreak,” said a statement issued Friday on behalf of Karen Prentice, and their three daughters Christina, Cassia and Kate. “To lose two family members at once is unbelievably painful.”

They appealed for privacy, expressed condolences to families of the two other victims, who have not yet been publicly identified, and said their husband and father was a friend to many.

Across the country, the Conservative political family and the broader Canadian political class mourned Prentice.

A common thread ran through all the tributes: a lawyer, MP, federal cabinet minister, banker, Alberta premier, and lately an investment advisor, Prentice radiated decency and integrity.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Jim Prentice brought his deep convictions to everything he turned his hand to, whether it was law, business, or politics.”

“He was broadly respected in the House of Commons, across all party lines, for his intelligence, commitment, and honest straightforward approach on tough issues,” he said.

Trudeau, in Alberta Friday, told reporters during a stop in Standoff, that he and Prentice didn’t always share the same views. But he said Prentice was always incredibly kind and respectful, and that he will miss him.

Trudeau also telephoned Prentice’s wife personally to express his condolences, said Hill.

“For Alberta, today is a day of sorrow in the face of terrible tragedy,” said Premier Rachel Notley, the NDP leader who defeated Prentice’s government. “He was deeply loved in Alberta,” she said, adding “I benefitted from his advice.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

A preliminary incident report from Transport Canada says the jet, owned by Norjet Inc., was climbing through 8,600 feet when it disappeared off the radar. RCMP say they were alerted after midnight Toronto time by air traffic controllers after they lost contact with the plane.

Rescuers found the crash site in a heavily wooded area north of Kelowna near the town of Winfield, RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Dan Moskaluk told the Star.

Investigators with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada were making their way to the scene Friday.

Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose said that, for all of Prentice’s political accomplishments, he was most proud of his family.

“He was a political leader. He was a business leader. But I know, from knowing Jim for many years, that he was most proud of being a good husband, a good father and a very proud, new grandfather,” Ambrose said on Parliament Hill, her voice breaking.

John Baird, who sat at the cabinet table with Prentice, said in an interview Prentice was a “smart, thoughtful” colleague who “always led on issues before cabinet.”

He recalled sitting in Prentice’s office and talking about “how we could make our way forward on this issue or that. He was fearless on same-sex marriage and not afraid to buck the tide. Now a majority are where he was. I am just devastated,” said Baird.

Baird said Prentice “could be considered the third founder” of the modern Conservative Party.

At a key moment in 2002, after Prentice won the federal PC nomination for Calgary-Southwest, he stepped aside to allow Stephen Harper, the new leader of the Canadian Alliance, to have a clear shot at a federal seat in the Commons. It allowed Harper to show he could unite conservatives, well before he and Peter MacKay, then leader of the federal PCs, moved to merge the two parties.

After leaving federal politics, Prentice joined CIBC as vice-chairman, and sat on a handful of corporate boards, positions he held until he was elected leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative party, and became premier.

When he first told Jay Hill, then working as a consultant in Calgary, he was thinking of returning to political life, Hill recalled telling him “Are you out of your f------- mind?”

“I can remember his words like they were yesterday,” said Hill. “He said I don’t want to look back a decade from now at my children and grandchildren and know that I could have done something to try and help Alberta and chose not to.”

Yet Prentice’s political tenure in Alberta was short-lived.

Prentice resigned as both party leader and MLA on the election night.

With files from Alex Boutilier and Robert Benzie

Read more about: