Andrew Telegdi was fearless.

There was something about running away from his native land as a child, thinking he might die any moment, that made Telegdi never be afraid of anything Canadian politics could throw at him.

"We walked through snow fields and feared that every step we took could set off a landmine," Telegdi said in 1990, as he recalled his family's journey from Soviet-occupied Hungary to safety in Austria.

"It was a night of terror. I was nine years old. Once the journey was completed I vowed that I would never again be so afraid, and that I would never stop fighting against oppression."

Telegdi, who died this week at 70, was true to his word. He immigrated to Canada. He was a student leader at University of Waterloo in the 1970s, and a Waterloo city councillor in the 1980s. In 1993 he became the Liberal MP for what is now Waterloo riding. He held that post for 15 years.

A few things set him apart from other politicians. Telegdi wasn't afraid of being an outsider. He was no smooth talker. In fact, his election campaign team didn't like to send him knocking on doors because he would get into long debates with the voters.

Telegdi was a thorn in the side of many colleagues on Waterloo council when he demanded they be more open with taxpayers.

Once, when Waterloo councillors and staff had dinner together (on the taxpayers' dime) to celebrate passing a budget, Telegdi stayed home and ate spaghetti and meatballs with his family instead. He said he "couldn't stomach" the 10.4-per cent tax increase.

It was the same at the House of Commons, where he advocated hard for the rights of immigrants.

In 2000, he gave up his status as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. This was because he strongly objected to aspects of the government's proposed Citizenship Act. He was concerned with a clause that gave Canada's parliament, rather than the courts, the right to remove a person's citizenship.

"A liberal democratic state such as Canada should never remove citizenship lightly. That is what Hitler did to Jews, Gypsies and many others. That is what Stalin did to millions. All totalitarian regimes have engaged in these practices," he said.

Telegdi also successfully agitated to get citizenship rights restored to Canadians who were born outside the country or who lived abroad after leaving the country as children, English said.

His former assistant, Bardish Chagger, is now Waterloo's Liberal MP and also House Leader. She said Telegdi earned the respect of politicians of all stripes "by being an outspoken and passionate advocate for what he believed in."

"He was a born rebel," said John English, a historian who was Telegdi's friend and counterpart. English was Liberal MP in the adjacent riding of Kitchener Centre.

It seemed that Telegdi's every thought was informed by the most terrible period in the most violent century in human history.

As part of a huge wave of refugees who came to Canada from Eastern Europe after the Second World War, "he came from a part of the world that was just soaked in blood," said English.

"He knew how democracy could fall apart. He was one of a kind. We'll never see his like again."

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Telegdi's funeral is at 2 p.m. Saturday at Knox Presbyterian Church in Waterloo.

- Former MP Andrew Telegdi dies