It is true in politics, no less than in physics, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Michael Ignatieff, as is well known, has seen his popularity nosedive in recent weeks, when it seemed he could not put a foot right. Very well: if he is smart, he can turn that to his advantage, using the very speed of his decline to propel his rebound. Reculer pour mieux sauter and all that.
There is a script for this. If listening to his advisers, playing it safe, taking no stands, guarding every word has brought him to this humiliating low, then the way is open for one of those Hollywood moments, where the candidate rips up the speech that has been prepared for him and speaks from the heart—when he sheds the ingratiating poses of “politics as usual” in favour of his authentic self. Of course, it helps if that is, in fact, what the candidate is up to.
It is tempting to believe that the public does not want this—that we would sooner our politicians lie to us, dope us with half truths, preferring the comforting haze of denial to the harsh light of reality. But in fact the voters show every sign of craving the opposite, if only it were offered to them. Whenever and wherever they catch the slightest whiff of authenticity in a candidate, they practically rush the barriers, at least until the inevitable disappointment, either because the candidate proves not so authentic as it appeared, or because authenticity, all too often, comes bundled with incompetence.
So, assuming the Liberal leader has any interest in this strategy, he will have both to break the mould of politics-as-usual in fact, and to persuade the public of this reality. He will have to stake out a bold position on an issue of importance other politicians would prefer to avoid, in a way that inspires confidence that he will stick to it under fire.
There is an issue that presents itself, as others have noted, as an opportunity for Ignatieff to show some backbone, and that is the deficit. Certainly it’s an important issue: the greatest proximate threat to our standard of living, particularly in light of the approaching “geezer boom,” with the explosion of social costs, notably for health care, it will bring. And it is one on which current political discourse remains frozen in denial. We are sliding back into the habits of mind that produced the long string of deficits of the 1980s and 1990s, where budgets always balance in the future but never today, and any unpleasant gaps are made to disappear with endless, endless growth.
To now, Ignatieff’s stance has been that of the government’s: no sacrifice is required, neither spending cuts nor tax increases. “Wait and see” was the precise formulation—not exactly words to inspire a public thirsting for leadership. As long as Ignatieff parrots the Conservative line, he can hardly expect to rally voters to his side. If it is a test of who can evade the issue with greater finesse, Stephen Harper has already shown himself the better man. To win the day, Ignatieff has to change the terms by which the contest is to be judged. He has to make the issue who is more willing to tell the truth about our public finances.
Well, that, and who is more likely to deal with it in an intelligent fashion. Among those urging Ignatieff to make the case for a cold shower on the deficit, there is an unfortunate tendency to express this in terms of raising taxes, notably the GST. Not only is this bad politics—there’s brave, and then there’s suicidal—but it’s also bad policy. Which, if your strategic goal is a politics based on talking sense about policy, makes it even worse politics.
We should not make the mistake of equating political honesty with a willingness to raise taxes. To be sure, it may prove necessary to raise taxes, as a last resort, and if so the GST is the best tax to raise. But to start from that premise is to ignore the lush acres of spending waiting to be cut, from a budget that has expanded 38 per cent in just four years. The public can sense this well enough, which is why a promise to raise taxes is likely to be viewed, not as courageous clear-headedness, but as the same old tax-and-spend.
It’s true that spending cannot be cut sufficiently to balance the books in the short term, still less to accommodate all those exorbitant old folks, if spending cuts are restricted to those old standbys, “waste, fraud and duplication.” (Though it’s a start . . . ) Rather, it will require us to make clear choices about which sorts of things government—the federal government in particular—ought to be involved in, and which it should not, ideally following Coyne’s Law: government should only do what only government can do. That is, we should reserve scarce public funds for those goods and services that cannot be provided at least as well by other means. Which surely is only common sense, though it seems scarce enough.
If, as advertised, Ignatieff wishes to engage the public in an “adult conversation” about our fiscal challenges, he might start there. Certainly he has nothing to lose, and if things keep on as they are, neither will we.
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Comment
You mean Harper is actually steering the ship! God forbid! We should just be set adrift like Iggy and the Liberals to simply float along to where ever the politically correct currents of the day take us.
No thanks. I’d much rather follow someone with direction then a man who just rediscovered his own country.
You two are obviously correct, don't change coarse now, it's been smooth sailing.
"Change coarse?"
The last leader who tried anything like that was Joe Clark.
"Truth —– you [the Canadian voter] can't handle the truth"
Joe Who?
The Conservatives spend it and the LIBERALS are always cleaning up their messes. Mulroney cleaned up by Chretien/Martin Harris/Eves cleaned up by McGuinty. Harper/Flarhety will be cleaned up by the Liberals. Maybe not Ignatieff but by the next Liberal govt.
"Harris/Eves cleaned up by McGuinty"
McGuinty has more than tripled the deficit that he was left by the Eves Government, Ontario has gone from "have" to 'have not", and the manufacturing sector has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs. On what planet is that considered "cleaning up"?
Sorry, Coyne. No Liberal's going to take your advice and give you credit, no matter how well-intentioned it is (and it never is…it's just self-aggrandizement).
You pinned your neoliberal hopes on Harper and if you're disappointed to see those dashed, well too bad. The time to speak up was four years ago. Two decades ago, if we take into account your unbridled enthusiasm for laissez-faire.
Where was Coynes cheerleading when Dion did this? Andrew Coyne is a self important clown. This magazine is complete garbage now.
He mentions that authenticity doesn't excuse incompetence…
Shows how much you know about Coyne.
He was a Draft Dion fan, and was okey dokey with the Green Shaft.
I think you're confusing him with Potter.
Amazingly, this is pretty much the election debate taking place in Britain. Why is it considered bold and risky here?
Not sure that, with rising income inequality, the GST is necessarily the best tax to raise. Also, I'd love to read the platform of the pro government waste and fraud party.
I would like to change the subject for a momment if I could and switch to Wait Times in our Canadian Health Care System. I live in a small town in Manitoba with a population 200 plus and there have been six people who have waited over a year for an operation. How many do you suppose there are in all Manitoba and or Canada. My wife happens to be one of these unfortunate people who waited over a year for the first hip operation and is now waiting for the other hip to be done. Lots of people who are older and hvae paid taxes all their lives have to wait for years for an operation. This don't seem right.
Of course, health care is a provincial responsibility.
It sucks, but the feds should just keep their hands off it.
I live in Alberta and waited 7 years for my first knee replacement and another six months for the next one. eneri
I agree entirely with Fred from Brandon MB with his lead-off comment. On principle, this Igneutered One could've kept his political potency by going Right instead of Left. He shouldn't have relied on the faulty Liebral GPS for his direction, when ideologically he actually lined up better with the Blue. The allure of power proved to be the decisive factor and now he's paying the price. The LPC has no platform, no alternative policies which would make anyone want ot actually vote for them, so what has Mikhail Igneutiev gained by all of this? Only the notoriety which comes from being the bridesmaid but never the bride. He can only aspire to that which he can never achieve, because he will never be seen as relevant to the Canadian people.
The would be emporer has no clothes.
Hmmm……a right wing Con giving advice to opposition? LOL
Political realities dictate that this issue cannot honestly be addressed under the shadow of a campaign (the ideal scenario is for a majority government to address it- and early term).
I emphasize "honestly" because we saw what happened to Iggy a few days back with his "adult conversation" volley then running away from it as fast as he could. He never should have thrown it up there in the first place – chalk it up to inexperience and a bad war room. Now we are left with mushy platitudes backing away from "hard choices".
This is particularly dangerous to one trying to stake ideological ground: raise taxes and those fiscal cons not yet committed, flock to Harper. Cut spending and cede ground to the NDP.
no one can help a guy without political imagination.
Andrew, I agree with you that Ignatieff needs to distinguish himself by taking a stand. And the deficit is a noble goal, I think everyone assumes, given the Paul Martin years, that this would be a major goal for them. But frankly, its not very exciting or inspiring. Whether that is rational or not isn't the point, the very point you are making is that the Liberals need to excite the public with a stand on some issues, so the issue needs to be exciting. Personally, I think there is space for a national leader to excite the Canadian public with a grand vision of how to fix our dysfunctional democracy. I know you are on board about the importance of electoral reform but most Canadians don't think about it. They just know that something is wrong, that they're votes don't count, and that they can't see any way out of the minority/conservative Catch-22 we've got ourselves stuck in. There is space for a national leader to explain this, with passion, and to give Canadians a dream that we could actually get the representation we ask fro Ottawa. They need to go beyond their interests and argue for something that benefits Canadian voters but not necessarily any of the parties. That's the kind of authenticity people can believe in, and I agree with you completely in that Canadians deeply want to believe in something again, its been so long. I think its proportional representation (of some kind), maybe its the green technology, or world peace but its definitely not the deficit.
If you aggree with me, sign this petition act.ly/nk
I'm up for "world peace".
Maybe start with a five point plan. Here, I'll give it a start:
1) Ban malevolent authoritarian regimes intent on regional domination and believing in the coming of a caliphate to rule over all of mankind.
I'm sure Iggy could get that one done in his first year in office.
Libs need a new leader. He's far from engaging, and I think people are suspect of him. I want the deficit issue brought under control, but I don't see "Iggy" being the one to do it. I trust it'll be a liberal though, just not this one.
There are two things wrong with Michael Ignatieff and his team. They don't have even a smidgen of imagination or political energy. Their attempts to communicate with the public are not reaching the voters, are out of touch with the voters needs, and the leader is wooden and cold. Perhaps that coolness is common place in the Ivy Leagues, but it won't put him into 24 Sussex. The constant wooden and limp delivery in front of the wall of flags, that always seems to be available everywhere in this country, is just awful and isolating. Get with it, Michael. Smile. No, I mean really smile, don't just lock your lips in the smiling position. Where's the "I dig Iggy" campaign? Get on the train, or you will miss the next Prime Ministerial swearing in ceremony.
My friend thinks that Iggy loved the attention of the leadership campaign, but loathes the possibility of being Prime Minister. Why shouldn't he think that? Iggy's campaign, so far, makes me think he's right.
The main reason why there have been considerable extra costs in the last four years (not counting the recession) is Canada's involvement in Afghanistan and related military expenses. And it seems this will continue for at least the next couple of years if not longer. Iggy, of course, is a proponent of Canada being part of American wars and so it's hard to expect from him any change in this regard.
But I agree with Mark Crowley that reducing the deficit is certainly not a very sexy subject with voters. Something like Trudeau's "just society" would probably sound a lot better. Overall, however, Canada is in a pretty good shape and it will be hard for Iggy to come up with an issue that will excite the voters to change the government at this stage.
We won't know what the Ignatieff position on most things is until an election is called. What is known is that there is a list as long as your arm on what Harper's positions have been and he has done the exact opposite. It would be nice to know what we are getting but when ones word means nothing can we ever believe what the individual will deliver on when in office. Harper's credibility is zero and Ignatieff''s is a big question mark but he's innocent until proven otherwise.
I did ovestimate Ignatieff, I expected more from him! ( I keep forgeting that intellectuals – academics, are good for interviews, the classrom and writing books, not that it isn't anything wrong with that!) but he is just not a leader, has no idea how to lead, he needs someone to lead him, that's just who he is!
He doesn't have another 12 months to prove himself maybe until the spring, the Libs are already split and it is a matter of time before they kick him out, they wont wait to make more mistakes, they CAN NOT afford it!
And he needs a to pull a major turn around to stay as leader to the next election…
By the way, I do like Harper but I really DO NOT agree with half of his policies, but I get what he is trying to achieve…
I don't know what you understand about Harper. To me he's the most opporunistic Flip-Flop politician.
He came in as a Reform, and (just to confuse you) he's governing like a Liberal in disguise.
But we all know who Andrew Coyne supports do we not?
The C.B.C. At Issue Panel is the most Conservative bias 10 minutes on the airways NO GD DOUBT ABOUT IT!
One would think in all fairness THEY would insert at least ONE Liberal supporter on this pathetic panel!!!
Why would anyone think that Coyne knows anymore about politics than anyone else? Who cares what an egotistical blowhard like Coyne thinks anyway. I guess we should hand the country over to him and the rest of the know-it-all morons in the media who think a degree in journalism makes them smarter than everone else. Then all of our problems will be solved or at the very least we would not have to read all of their nonsense everyday.