Retiring Conservative Calgary MP Len Webber makes good on promise to late wife

It started with a promise Len Webber made to his wife in 2010, as her long battle with cancer came to its end.

They had fallen in love in the mid-1980s when they were both varsity athletes at Red Deer College in central Alberta.

Heather Macdonald-Webber was 47, and the couple had been married 23 years.

"She shed a tear knowing that she wasn't able to donate any of her organs," said Webber, a member of Parliament.

"I told her that it's OK. I will do what I can."

That promise turned into an effort to combine two of life's certainties: death and taxes.

Webber announced last month his retirement from politics, after 10 years as an Alberta Progressive Conservative legislature member and 11 years as the Conservative MP for Calgary Confederation.

"I'm not a spring chicken. I'm going to be 65 this year. If I went one more round, I'd be 69, 70-ish. And then what? 10 years of life?" said Webber.

"It was time to go now."

As he prepares to leave politics, one of Webber's defining legacies will be his advocacy for increasing Canada's rate of organ donations by offering a consent option on tax forms.

A lack of organ transplants continues to be a deadly issue. The Canadian Institute for Health Information says a third of Canadians on the transplant list were taken off in 2023 because they died while waiting.

As an Alberta MLA, Webber introduced a private member's bill to establish one agency to co-ordinate organ and tissue donations and set up a provincial organ donor registry.

In 2015, taking a narrow victory to federal office, he marched on by introducing a bill that would add a question to tax forms, signalling interest in becoming an organ and tissue donor. Those who wish to become donors would be contacted by their province for details on registration.

Years later, the bill passed unanimously through the House of Commons and was sent to the Senate to receive royal assent.