Upon learning he had brain cancer, Brett Cemer declared it his goal to reach forty years of age. Sadly, he didn't make it. Instead, this dedicated socialist, active trade unionist, enthusiastic hiker and camper, and genuinely sweet person died at age 37 on July 13th of this year.
Born and raised in small-town Alberta, Brett did a Masters degree in library sciences. While working on that degree, however, he developed a growing interest in socialist theory and politics, an interest that carried him to Toronto's York University. Starting his Masters there in Social and Political Thought in 1994, Brett gravitated to the group of York Marxists then affiliated with the International Socialists (IS). He quickly joined their ranks, bringing his sparkling intellect and wry sense of humour to the group.
As political difficulties in the IS mounted, largely having to do with grotesquely exaggerated political expectations and the hardening of the group's internal regime, Brett threw in his lot with the dissidents who ultimately left the organization and, in 1996, established the New Socialist Group. Brett played a crucial role in the early days of the new group. He was elected as one of the editors of New Socialist magazine and contributed a remarkably perceptive article on recent mass strikes in France to its first issue.
With his political commitments deepening, Brett decided that academic work was not his calling - but not before he produced an incredibly astute Major Research Paper for his second Masters degree. Taking up Marxist analyses of the general strike in France in May 1968, particularly those written by Ernest Mandel and Tony Cliff, Brett argued that these works were flawed by the central assumption that the working class was more or less naturally drawn to revolution. Brett challenged this premise, arguing that rather than treating reformism as an aberration to be explained, Marxists needed to grapple with the immense difficulties of developing revolutionary consciousness.
In 1996, Brett found work with the York University Faculty Association (YUFA), a union which would soon launch a long strike. Brett worked tirelessly, organizing bargaining research and internal communications. So significant was his contribution to YUFA's 1997 strike that he was soon hired into a permanent job, helping to shape the progressive direction the union took in the aftermath of its eight week strike. At the same time, Brett also became a central activist in his own union, CUPE 1281, holding various elected positions there. In all this work, Brett was amazingly free of any sense of self-importance. He simply and gracefully did what he thought needed to be done - and did it immensely well - on behalf of the labour and socialist movements.
By temperament and disposition, Brett was an exceptionally kind, modest, thoughtful person, astute in judgement, dry in humour. But he was no pushover.
One of my fondest memories of him comes from the militant anti-poverty march organized by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) on June 15, 2000 at Toronto's Queen's Park. Tempers flared when the 1,500 protesters were greeted by baton wielding riot police, many of them on horseback. As the crowd resisted, Brett took up a position in the front ranks, bandana pulled up, rocks in hand, fighting back against the police offensive.
Brett brought the same fierce determination to his battle against cancer. Despite the ravages of the disease and the effects of treatments, he continued to jog regularly, and he seized all opportunities to go hiking and camping. Offering an example to all of us, Brett knew how precious time is, and he was intent on squeezing everything possible out of whatever he had left.
When he sensed that he was losing his battle against the disease wracking him, Brett returned to Alberta to be with loved ones and to hike through some of the terrain he most cherished. We lost him much too soon. But the friends, family members and progressive activists who knew him and worked with him all know that we are very much richer for what he gave to us.