What's up at the Liberal convention. (Or should that be "Liberalist"?)

By John Geddes - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 1:56 PM - 5 Comments

As delegates assemble here at the new Vancouver Convention Centre for the Liberal biennial convention, chatter in the hallways suggests to me that five points (itemized after the break) are worth watching over the next three days.
Continue…

Waiting on Iggy

By Andrew Potter - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 6:26 PM - 2 Comments

Michael Ignatieff was supposed to drop by the OC today for a visit with the ed board. With great excitement we gathered in the boardroom, fresh coffee a-brewing, fresh copies of True Patriot Love at the ready. But the fourth-generation patriot failed to show — apparently he got in late from Washington and had more pressing items on his itinerary.

I have to say that my desire to add much to the inkage written about his new book is about as strong as his desire to come to the office for a visit. Coyne’s review seems pretty much right on. It’s not much of a book: The first chapter is cloying, the second is boring, the third is kinda cool, the fourth is disappointing, the fifth is a very poor excuse for a leadership manifesto. I’ve been warming to the man in recent months; this book signals a probable cooling trend.

I did like this passage, in a ot-bummed-me-out sort of way, where he chronicles a cross-country trip he and his wife took a few summers ago, following the footsteps of George Munro Grant:

In the days that followed, we crossed the Great Divide, drove through the Yellowhead Pass and began making our way through the narrow river  gorges where Grant had seen the sweat lodges of the river people. In the Fraser Canyon, we stopped for a cappuccino at a trading post where they sold bentwood boxes made by Aboriginal inmates at the local provincial prison.

****

UPDATE: It occurs to me that end-of-week lassitude is no excuse. I’ll get a proper review of Ignatieff’s book up over the weekend.

… Same as the old (Liberal) boss

By Andrew Potter - Monday, April 20, 2009 at 10:53 AM - 8 Comments

Despite their new leader’s big talk about the Liberal caucus ceasing to sit on its hands while the Tories steamroll parliament, Ignatieff’s people aren’t exactly fulfilling their constitutionally-defined role of officially opposing the government of the day. As Glen McGregor reports today, this government-in-waiting seems to be still waiting for something to object to:

OTTAWA — Despite leader Michael Ignatieff’s vow that his party would no longer sit on its hands during votes in Parliament, Liberal MPs have missed three times as many votes in the House of Commons as Conservative members so far this year.

The average Liberal MP did not participate in about 12 per cent of the recorded votes on bills and motions in the House of Commons since the parliamentary session began in January, compared to Tory MPs, who on average skipped four per cent, a Citizen analysis shows.

The Liberals posted the worst record for voting of the four parties in the House, standing to be counted fewer times on average than even Bloc Québécois MPs.

And when Liberal MPs did show up, they voted the same way as the Conservatives 79 per cent of the time.

Iggy Takes the Helm

By Andrew Potter - Friday, December 12, 2008 at 12:20 AM - 3 Comments

Taylor Owen has a new piece in the Prospect magazine advancing the claim that Michael Ignatieff could be an Obamaesque figure, “the first transformational Canadian leader in a generation.” Of course, Taylor would say that – he worked on Ignatieff’s leadership campaign. 

I’m not buying it. It is pretty obvious that Stephen Harper is the first genuinely transformational leader Canada has had since Trudeau; the fact that most people don’t see it as such is because “transformational” is one of those words, like “change” and “community”, that only get used as terms of approbation (notwithstanding the fact that many changes -e.g. your dog dying – are no good).

So the implicit argument is something like: “Transformational leadership” is a good thing. Stephen Harper is no good. Ergo, SH can’t be transformational leader. Which is just to say that when people say “transformational leader,” all they really mean is “liable to implement changes that I approve of.”

But other than that, I’m still not sure what to think of Professor Ignatieff. For the most part, I think it is a bad idea for academics to go into politics.   As for Ignatieff, since he entered Canadian politics he has repeatedly struck me as an intellectual field of wheat, bowing and bending in the direction of whatever breeze happened to be puffing by. Quebec as a nation? Sure, as long as it’s a civic nation. War in Iraq? Well, I was speaking as an academic, not as a politician. Bogus. 

That said, I think Ignatieff was treated somewhat unfairly by the anti-war left, especially over his supposed support for torture. In general, his opponents have made poor sport of digging through his past writings and tugging passages out of context for political gain. 

All of which is to say, I can’t make my mind about the man.  Maybe I’d have more consistent views on his candidacy if he were more consistent on the issues that really matter, and which are supposedly his academic specialty.

In the end, I hope he doesn’t end up regretting his ambition, as I’m sure Stephane Dion must, to some degree. Still, he can’t say I didn’t warn him.

Location, locution

By John Geddes - Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 12:39 AM - 0 Comments

At Hollywood on the Queensway, the bar in Ignatieff’s Toronto riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore that, as mentioned in a previous post, has served as his election-night HQ, the crowd is thinning out. It’s not a venue that recalls his Ivy League days.

When the Liberals haven’t got the place booked, the big draws are NFL football, oldies dance nights, and a Thursday blues bash. Down the block there’s an import wholesaler specializing in sunglasses and lingerie, a legal services storefront (“Traffic ticket? x traffic cop helps you”), and a cell shop that promises to “repair and unblock all phones.”

It would have been hard to think of Ignatieff holding forth in this sort of joint, with his precise professor’s intonation (the better for taking notes) when he first came back to Canada from Harvard. Now, it’s not nearly as difficult. No doubt, that evolution in his persona—constituency pol paying his dues paid and all that—will serve him well. Whatever comes now.

Ignatieff spoke

By John Geddes - Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 11:54 PM - 5 Comments

Come to think of it, Michael Ignatieff has been talking about rebuilding parties for quite some time.

Back in the spring of 2005, before he had jumped from Harvard home to Canada and politics, Ignateiff gave a guest lecture at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. Here’s a bit of what he said then:

“The raison d’etre of our parties is to create national coalitions… The current capacity of all of our federal parties to do this has been weakened for 20 years. The reasons why are complex: failure of leadership, indifference to ideas, a hollowing out of the parties themselves, their slow decline from vehicles of policy and coalition-forming to professional election machines.”

Continue…

Ignatieff speaks

By John Geddes - Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 11:32 PM - 3 Comments

Here at Michael Ignatieff’s election-night bash you’d never know the Liberals have lost. Bedouin Soundclash is throbbing in the basement of Hollywood on the Queensway—a bar in his west Toronto riding—campaign workers are eating pizza, and nobody seems all that glum.

Continue…