Postmedia: Layton top newsmaker of 2011

Canada.com, Postmedia News:

Jack Layton, the NDP leader who died almost four months after propelling his party into official Opposition status in the May federal election, took honours as top Canadian newsmaker of 2011 in a survey of Postmedia Network senior editors.

The informal poll among newspaper and website journalists across Canada had Layton squeaking past Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who won his first majority after five years of minority government. The political success of both men sidelined the once-mighty Liberals and pulverized the Bloc Quebecois in the House of Commons.

Layton "brought the NDP into the official opposition, and in doing so he decimated the Bloc Quebecois; he knocked the Liberal Party out of its traditional hold on one of the top two spots; he engaged young voters; and he returned a sense of humanity to the political scene," said Catherine Wallace, managing editor of The Gazette in Montreal. "The reaction to his death months after the election underlined his impact."

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