The Canadian Polish Congress mourns the passing of former Polish-Canadian MP Jesse Flis

Today we mourn the passing of former Polish-Canadian MP Jesse Flis, who represented Parkdale-High Park from 1979-84 and again from 1988-97. A recipient of our Gold Award of Merit, he was a dedicated leader in the Polish community and will be deeply missed.

Educator, community activist, Member of Parliament

Son of Polish immigrants, Jesse Flis earned a Master of Education degree from the University of Toronto and worked in the Toronto Board of Education as teacher, principal, consultant, and coordinator of special education. In 1970, he became a founding member of the Wladyslaw Reymont Foundation of Canada, named for the Nobel Prize-winning Polish author. While on a sabbatical leave to study educational methods in Central Europe, he collected archival material for the foundation, including Reymont's letters.

Flis entered politics in the late 1970s, serving as Member of Parliament for Parkdale Riding in Toronto from 1979 to 1984 and again from 1988 to 1997. As an MP, he founded the Polish Emergency Committee of Canadian Parliamentarians to address the imposition of martial law and the suppression of the Solidarity movement by the communist government in Poland, and repeatedly pressed the Mulroney government to expedite the admission of self-exiled refugees from Poland. He helped found the Canada Poland Parliamentary Friendship Group, which remains active to this day. Flis served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport and to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Following his retirement from Parliament, Flis remained deeply engaged in community life, serving on the Government Relations Committee of the Toronto Community Living Program, the OMNI Television Advisory Board, the executive board of the Canadian Polish Congress, where he worked to support Polish studies at the University of Toronto, and the Cardinal Wyszynski Council of the Knights of Columbus. He also chaired the board of the Copernicus Lodge seniors' home in Toronto.

Over the course of his life, Flis received many distinctions, including the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit from the government of Poland, the Order of Lithuania from the government of Lithuania, and the Gold Award of Distinction from the Canadian Polish Congress. He was an honorary life member of several Polish Canadian organizations, including the Association of Polish Engineers in Canada.

Cześć Jego pamięci. Rodzinie i bliskim składamy wyrazy współczucia.