It was a day of tears and bittersweet smiles at the Alberta legislature as Premier Rachel Notley and other dignitaries paid tribute to former premier Jim Prentice.
The official portrait of Prentice was unveiled as his wife, Karen, and family looked on in the legislature rotunda.
Prentice served as Alberta’s 16th premier but left politics after his Progressive Conservatives lost the 2015 election to Notley and her NDP.
READ MORE: Portrait of former Alberta premier Jim Prentice going up at legislature
Prentice, who before provincial politics had been a federal Conservative cabinet minister, died in a plane crash in 2016.
Karen Prentice said she remembers her husband as a man of vision who had a love of children.
She said he would often stop school groups in the hallway, invite them to his office and let kids sit in the premier’s chair in the hope they would be inspired to take up public service.
The Canadian Press