James Laxer, an author, York University professor and former federal NDP leadership candidate, has died at the age of 76.

Laxer died of natural causes on Friday in Paris. He had been travelling through Europe with his spouse, Sandy Price, while researching a new book on Canada’s role in the Second World War.

Laxer’s son Michael said his father had been travelling since just after Christmas and planned on returning to Toronto in March.

“It’s just a shock. We were not expecting it, Michael told the Star. “We all thought he was in very good health, but it appears to have been heart-related.”

In addition to Price, Laxer leaves four children, Michael, Kate, Emily and Jonathan; four grandchildren, Nathaniel, Julia, Benjamin and Robert; and siblings Linda and Gord.

“We were very close. He has always been a major figure in my life,” said Michael.

Laxer was born in 1941 in Montreal and played a central role in Canada’s left-wing nationalist movement in the early 1970s. He received a BA from the University of Toronto and an MA from Queen’s University.

In 1969 Laxer, along with his father, Robert, and political economist Mel Watkins, formed the Waffle, a far-left socialist movement known for its support for Quebec’s right to self-determination and an independent Canadian labour movement.

Laxer then ran for the leadership of the federal NDP in 1971 against David Lewis, who was expected to win. Laxer received one-third of the vote — a surprisingly strong showing.

“The Waffle manifesto had been issued prior to that and he was not expected to do terribly well, but he completely shocked both the party and the political pundits,” said Michael.

Having been dubbed a “party within a party,” the Waffle members were ordered by the provincial NDP council in Ontario to either disband or leave the party. Laxer did the latter, then ran for Parliament in 1974 as an Independent candidate.

“He didn’t come close to winning,” said Michael. “But I think it was more about him proving a point.”

The Waffle — also known as the Movement for an Independent Socialist Canada — disbanded, but Michael believes it had a “huge and lasting impact on the Canadian left and within the NDP.”

Laxer went on to teach political science at York University, where he remained until his death. He wrote numerous books on Canadian history, politics and economics, and had contributed op-ed columns to the Star since the 1980s. One of his most recent pieces, published in September, called for a “radical makeover” of the federal NDP. In late 2016, he presciently noted in another column that “the gun question is at the centre of a dangerously widening civil conflict in the United States.”

Jordan Himelfarb, the Star’s deputy editorial page editor, praised Laxer as “an op-ed editor’s dream: a talented writer who could comment with authority on a wide range of issues and whose ideas and conclusions, while reliably on the left, still often surprised.”

Himelfarb noted: “As a political historian, he had a special talent for finding contemporary resonances in understudied stories. And, in his responses to current events, he remained committed to the democratic-socialist principles that he famously fought for in his political life.

“… He saw democratic socialism as the best response to the rise of right-wing extremism and the growth of inequality, arguing that it was time to fight for a Canada that was ‘egalitarian, green and sovereign.’ In his capable hands, those ideas didn’t sound so quixotic.”

In the 1980s, Laxer hosted a current affairs show, The Real Story, on TVOntario. He also co-wrote and presented a five-part documentary series in 1986 that examined Canada’s socioeconomic relationship with the U.S. Reckoning: The Political Economy of Canada won a Gemini award.

Laxer also served on the board of environmentally minded advocacy organization the Council of Canadians for a number of years, as did both his father and brother. In a Facebook post on Sunday, the group’s national chairperson, author and activist Maude Barlow, called him “a great beacon of progressive thought and a role model for so many.”

“Jim Laxer was a clear voice of reason and justice for many decades,” Barlow elaborated in an email to the Star. “He had a strong moral compass that never let him down. Over and over, Jim stood for the best in progressive politics in Canada and guided us all to be our best selves. We will miss him terribly and are deeply saddened at his loss.”

While Laxer had many accomplishments, Michael said he will remember his father most for the summers they spent at the family cottage in Muskoka, near Gravenhurst.

“He loved to tell his goofy jokes and he was always trying to make people laugh and feel good,” Michael said of his father. “He had a big heart.”

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A political activist himself who ran for the NDP in the 2000 federal election and for Toronto city council in 2014, Michael said he grew up in “a vibrant political household.”

Robert Laxer, Michael’s grandfather, was a member of the Communist Party of Canada during the Great Depression. He was also a freelance journalist when he served in the Second World War.

“Politics is in our blood — being involved in the left and trying to create a more just and fair Canada,” Michael said.

With files from Ben Rayner