A giant in the Windsor-Essex labour community is being remembered.
Rolly Marentette passed away Wednesday after a battle with cancer.
Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Percy Hatfield knew him for almost 40 years.
"I'll miss his friendship. I'll miss his guidance. Just being able to send an email and get a replay right away on issues I needed help with," says Hatfield.
He worked alongside Marentette in developing legislation for the National Day of Mourning.
"Rolly was the inspiration for that Private Member's bill which means that flags across the province on April 28th, that every building, college, university, whatever gets government funding they have to lower their flags on the 28th of April," says Hatfield.
He says he saw Marentette just last month at the National Day of Mourning.
"Rolly came, he was sick, he couldn't speak, he had lost his voice. But he wrote a beautiful letter that Ken Lewenza Senior read out and we all had tears in our eyes because many of us didn't know how ill Rolly was at that point," says Hatfield.
Marentette served for several years as chair of the Windsor and District Labour Council's Health and Safety Committee and was a leader in fighting for improvements to workplace safety.