TORONTO – A series of public visitations were held last weekend for 61-year-old Filipino-Canadian Senator Tobias Enverga Jr., who passed away unexpectedly during a parliamentary trip to Colombia last week.
He died after cardiac arrest on November 16 while attending the ParlAmericas 14th Annual Plenary Assembly in Medellin, Colombia.
Before being appointed to the Senate, Enverga served as a Toronto Catholic district School Board trustee. He became a senator in 2012 during former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government and was the first Filipino-Canadian to serve in the Senate. At the time, Enverga said he planned to use his seat to advocate for his community and people with special needs, like one of his daughters who had Down syndrome.
His office said his wife Rosemer was by his side when he passed away. He was attending a meeting with the Canadian Section of ParlAmericas, an all-party parliamentary association formed of MPs and senators.
“Always a beacon of light and hope, Senator Enverga truly cherished the opportunity to serve the people of Canada and did so with great pride,” read a statement from his office on Thursday.
Liberal MP Bob Nault, chair of the Canadian Section of ParlAmericas, was on the trip with Enverga. Nault had dinner with Enverga, Canadian Ambassador to Colombia Marcel Lebleu and the parliamentary delegation on Wednesday night. “We were out for dinner last night. Everything was normal. He was himself,” Nault told The Globe and Mail during a phone interview from Medellin on Thursday. His wife Rosemer flew back to capital Ottawa with her husband’s body on Friday.
In a statement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Mr. Enverga actively promoted the values of multiculturalism, diversity and inclusiveness” and was well respected by his colleagues in the Senate and House of Commons.
Enverga was born in the Philippines and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in the Philippines, a Masters Certificate in Project Management from the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, and a Computer Studies Certificate from Centennial College also in Toronto. At the time of his appointment to the Senate, he was a project manager at the Bank of Montreal, where he had worked for more than 30 years.
He was co-chair of the Asian Heritage Month Celebration for the Greater Toronto Area and was previously a director of the Canadian Multicultural Council – Asians in Ontario. He founded the Philippine Canadian Charitable Foundation and is a former president of the Philippine Independence Day Council.
