Family, friends, colleagues and prime ministers both past and present came together in Nova Scotia’s Antigonish to celebrate the life of one of the region’s most powerful and memorable politicians Sunday afternoon.

Hundreds gathered on the campus of Saint Francis Xavier University to honour Allan J. MacEachen, who died earlier this week at the age of 96.

A piper's lament filled the Keating Centre as the flag-draped casket of the longtime member of parliament and senator was brought in.

Among those present to honour MacEachen’s life were former Prime Minister Jean Chetien and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

MacEachen was known for reshaping Canadian policy by ushering in programs like Medicare and the Canada Pension Plan.     

“Whether they credit him or not, Canadians are living in the country that Allan J. built and they like it,” said Trudeau.

MacEachen’s parliamentary brilliance put him at the right hand of the late former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

Trudeau says MacEachen and his father were a match made in heaven.

“That’s what my father and Allan J. understood perfectly, the bedrock value they held in common,” Trudeau said. “All people are equal. We all deserve equal treatment under the law, equal opportunity to be whom we are and to do with our lives what we choose.”

MacEachen chose to put the concerns of his riding in Cape Breton at the forefront and, in return, he was revered in homes across the island.

Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil says MacEachen had an important lesson for those of any age.

“Just because you come from a small town, doesn't mean you can't do big things,” said McNeil.

After retiring in 1996, St. F.X. launched the Allan J.MacEachen lecture series on politics.

MacEachen also supported former Ontario Premier Bob Rae in the federal leadership bid.

“All of us who had a chance to work with him, or in my case, to work with him, to work against him, and then to work with him again, understood that while there was always an elusive, private quality to his personality there was also a very deep love of what politics brought to his life,” said Bob Rae.

The man known as the "Laird of Lake Ainslie" will be laid to rest Tuesday, after a funeral mass on his beloved Cape Breton Island.

Files from CTV Atlantic’s Dan MacIntosh.