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? Ten 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.
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Years later, the bill passed unanimously through the House of Commons and was sent to the Senate to receive royal assent.
But an election was called in 2019, forcing Senate to drop the matter and Webber to return to the start line.
“It was incredibly disappointing, because it took years to get where it was,” he said.
Webber came back around for another shot after he was re-elected in 2019. His name, as he remembered, was the first pulled from a lottery determining “order of precedence” for considering private members’ bills.
“It was just a sign that this was meant to pass,” he said.
Once again, the bill passed with a unanimous vote across party lines and received royal assent in June 2021.
Because provinces are responsible for organ donations, many haven’t yet agreed to add the checkbox on their tax forms. Ontario and Nunavut were the first to commit, starting in 2022. Alberta has said it’s working on adding the box and B.C. added it this year.
“I’ve been lobbying them all,” Webber said.
In 2023, about 2.5 million Ontario taxpayers indicated they were interested in becoming organ donors. In Nunavut, 3,900 taxpayers ticked the box.
“Hopefully, perhaps, I saved somebody’s life because of this,” said Webber.
Webber will also be remembered for triggering the revolt against former Alberta premier Alison Redford in 2014, as a controversy over her travel expenses dogged – and eventually ended – her leadership.
“She’s really just not a nice lady,” Webber famously said the day he resigned from caucus to sit as an Independent.
Redford resigned six days later.
“Some people give me a pat on the back for it,” Webber recalled. “Sometimes you just need to do the right thing. I just saw too many times some negativity out of that leadership, so I could not be a part of it.”
His retirement is likely to make for a competitive race in Calgary Confederation. Polls widely suggest the riding, with its long history of sending conservatives to Ottawa, will be a toss-up between the Liberals and Conservatives.
About six months before his wife died, Webber travelled with her to Hawaii so she could watch three people she coached run in the Honolulu Marathon. After her death, he ran it three times in her honour.
Whether he runs in the marathon again is up for debate. He didn’t say what might come next.
“I feel selfish that I’m living and she’s not,” he said. “Now, I need to live for both of us.”
© 2025 The Canadian Press
