On why the NDP hates all the applause
By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - 11 Comments
And a political wife’s new hair
Coming soon? This is your pilot, Ruby Dhalla, speaking.
Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla was in riding lockdown this summer. She left only twice: for the Liberal caucus meeting in Sudbury, and for French lessons in France. This summer, to mark her fifth year as an elected official, she was raising money for the Ethno-Cultural Canadian Women’s Organization or ECCO (the final O is the symbol for woman). The group’s goal is combatting domestic violence in ethnic communities. Dhalla is also studying to be a pilot; so far, she has only been in simulators, though. Toronto’s Pearson International Airport is on the border of her riding. She often gives herself extra time when flying out of there because security people, many of whom are constituents, stop her to ask about things like immigration problems when she leaves for Ottawa on Mondays. But for the first Monday that the House returned, Dhalla had a downtown Toronto meeting and flew Porter Airlines from the Toronto island airport. Her reading for the first week back was Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. Over the summer she read Barack Obama’s books and The Tao of Detox: The Natural Way to Purify Your Body for Health and Longevity.
It’s the much-coveted spot
Conservative backbench MP Brad Trost seems to be out of the doghouse. Several Tory MPs were miffed at Trost after he told a website, “The tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in Toronto was not government policy, was not supported by—I think it’s safe to say—by a large majority of the MPs. This was a very isolated decision.” He also alluded to a demotion for Diane Ablonczy, the minister responsible for allocating the funding. But on the first day Parliament resumed, Trost gave the last member’s statement before question period. This is a much-coveted spot since by that time most of the media and other MPs have reached their seats and may actually pay attention to it. NDP House leader Libby Davies says the Conservatives tend to use the last member’s statement simply to rattle Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. The personal attacks, she says, result in the Liberal caucus rising and extending their applause for their leader. Davies feels that the applause is going on so long it is cutting into question period and lowering the NDP’s chances of getting in an extra question at the end. She has complained to Speaker Peter Milliken. Continue…
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Let us now think deeply about Chris Osgood
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 1:02 PM - 9 Comments
Slapshot, the New York Times’ hockey blog, considers Michael Ignatieff’s hockey watching, as revealed in Adam Gopnik’s profile for the New Yorker.
Ignatieff notes the contrast between being a professor, writer and navel-gazer and being a politician. “The thing that politics most strongly resembles is being on soccer teams and hockey teams when I was a child,” he says. “It’s not a lonely writer in his den thinking thoughts.” He mulls the question further and tells Gopnik of an experience he had not too long ago with his wife.
“What is it that a great politician knows? What is that form of knowledge?” Ignatieff asks. “Last night, Zsuzsanna and I were watching the Detroit Red Wings goalie, and he knows something; what is it that he knows? What is it that a great politician knows? The great ones have a skill that is just jaw-dropping, and I’m trying to learn that.”
Presumably Ignatieff was watching Chris Osgood. (Disturbing news for Canadians? They’ve got to hope he was watching Osgood in the playoffs, not the regular season.) To American ears, it’s a bit weird to hear a national politician comparing anything to a living, breathing goalie — although to these particular American ears it’s a real pleasure.
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Newsmakers: Family album
By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 6, 2009 - 0 Comments
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Iggy and the big band
By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 1:09 PM - 10 Comments
Michael Ignatieff held his first media garden party at Stornoway since becoming Liberal leader. The Etobicoke Youth Jazz Orchestra from his Toronto riding provided the music.
Iggy’s wife Zsuzsanna Zsohar with Mimi.
Montreal Liberal MP Justin Trudeau.
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Mitchel Raphael on who Don Newman will miss
By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, June 25, 2009 - 2 Comments
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Michael Ignatieff & People Like You
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 4:26 PM - 11 Comments
The last year and a half has included numerous opportunities to watch Michael Ignatieff in public. The most interesting moment remains a scene last fall outside a strip mall in Etobicoke, Ignatieff, then deputy leader of the Liberals, standing at the entrance of a Shopper’s Drug Mart, trying to engage voters as they attempted to go about the business of buying toilet paper, shampoo and such.
I find that’s the day I come back to most, in conversation with other people, when trying to sort out who Michael Ignatieff is. I usually bring it up with all sorts of caveats about a politician’s inherent need to perform and the possibility it was all put on for my benefit, though I doubt they’d bother and I tend to believe I wasn’t being entirely snookered (but I would say that, wouldn’t I?). In general, I suppose I initially approach politicians with the best of hopes, bothered only slightly by fears of the worst. So judge my eyewitness account accordingly.
Anyway. For whatever it’s worth in figuring out Mr. Ignatieff, a reprint of the sketch that appeared here afterwards. Make of it what you will. Continue…
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Michael Ignatieff and “Dancing with the Tsars”
By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, February 23, 2009 at 10:39 PM - 13 Comments
Liberal leader Michael Igantieff was honorary chair of the Toronto Winter Palace Ball fundraiser for Ruskoka Camp, which helps underprivileged Russian Canadian youth. The evening was called “Dancing with the Tsars.”
Igantieff’s wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, headed straight to the silent auction. Zsohar took off one of her rings to test the authenticity of a hand-knit Orenburg shawl. She says it should be so fine and airy that you can pull it through a ring.
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On Martin’s exit tapes and the GG’s snowball fight
By Mitchel Raphael - Saturday, February 21, 2009 - 0 Comments
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‘Uber-married’
By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 12:38 PM - 4 Comments
The Globe’s Judith Timson takes great interest in the anecdote about Ignatieff and his wife, Zsuzsanna, reading Tolstoy to each other over Christmas.
Maybe it’s just me, but the new Liberal Leader seems utterly besotted with Zsuzsanna Zsohar, his wife of 10 years. Judging by his frequent references to her, he’s what you might call über-married…
Not only does this conjure up a charming picture of connubial bliss (although who can keep the romantic ups and downs of Tolstoy’s five aristocratic families straight?), it is a more intimate glimpse of a political leader’s marriage than we’ve seen in a long while.
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A very Ignatieff holiday party
By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 11:00 PM - 65 Comments
Interim Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff held his holiday party at Toronto’s hip C Lounge.
Toronto MP Ken Dryden and his wife Lynda.
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Iggy in the middle
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - 1 Comment
