Others have spoken about Dominic DiFruscio’s love of his family and friends, his commitment and dedication to his home community of Thorold, to the years he devoted to advocating for the protection and restoration of the monarch butterfly habitat, and his involvement with the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, which is where I came to first know him. But it was in the political arena that I truly came to know the man we all knew as “Mickey”.

Mickey with Prime Minister Trudeau from 2017 when the PM visited Thorold and was shown a plaque Mr. DiFruscio was responsible for erecting in Beaverdams Park dedicated to the PM's father.

I have been involved in politics for much of my adult life, but for the largest portion of those years, I was a municipal politician, serving as a city councillor and then mayor in Port Colborne. Your family is your team when you run locally.

I was aware, however, that at the higher office level, there is an army of individuals working behind the scenes, devoting countless hours licking stamps, knocking on doors, organizing fundraisers and a million other jobs to help their party and their candidate run in a successful election.

So when I decided to stand for the third-place Liberal Party in the 2015 election, I knew I would be working with a team of people dedicated to their country and a set of principles they believed provided the best path forward for Canada. On nomination night, one of the first to shake my hand was Mickey DiFruscio.

To Niagara Centre Liberals, Mickey was a cornerstone of the party. He spent decades fighting for Liberal candidates and year after year was instrumental in mobilizing the Liberal vote in Thorold. Over the decades, Mickey helped elect myself, Tony Tirabassi, John Maloney and his good friend, Gib Parent, a partnership that lasted six elections and five victories.

To me, Mickey was the voice of the accumulated wisdom of all of them, a bottomless resource for me to draw upon as I faced the daunting task of making a liar of the polls that year. And on election night, I was well-aware that not a small portion of the credit for that night’s victory belonged to Mickey and the hard work he put into our campaign.

I didn’t get much of any opportunity to revel as he took me by the arm that night and made me promise I would remember why I was elected and who was counting on me to do the right thing for Canadians. “Be a good man, Vance. Make us all proud, remember where you come from” he said, looking at me with those sparkling eyes of his. “Because I’ll let you know when you forget.”

I didn’t forget, Mickey. And none of us will every forget you. Thank you for trusting this elected representative and for devoting your life to the betterment of your community and to the welfare of your family and neighbours.