[hwacker]

WOW someone at the CBC is going to get fired.

[ridenrain]

Isn't that just perfect though?

Political career
In January 2005, influential journalist and historian Peter C. Newman suggested that Ignatieff could be an ideal leadership candidate for the governing Liberal Party of Canada after Paul Martin retires as leader. Ignatieff was the keynote speaker at the Liberal Party's national biennial convention in Ottawa in early March 2005. In his speech he repeated his insistence that "Canada should be at the table" in discussions surrounding North American Missile Defense Shield programs and global security efforts. He also stated his support for the decriminalization of marijuana and urged the Liberal Party's top officials to redouble their efforts in promoting federalism, and ensuring a "strong national government" for all of Canada.


Is this guy a Liberal or Conservative? What do you guys base you're candidates on, popularity?

[hwacker]

I think he bought his way in and Martini was the only party leader that would take his $$$, imagine that.

[Elvis]

If this guy is elected as prime minister There will not be a single federalist left in Québec read this from the Montreal Gazette

$1:

Josée Legault
The Gazette December 2, 2005 Friday

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whether Paul Martin wins the election or not, federal Liberals are prepping his potential successor. Michael Ignatieff, a Harvard professor who has been called the "sexiest brain" in Canada, is seen by many Liberals as their new Pierre Trudeau.

To get him into Parliament, Martin's people parachuted Ignatieff into the Toronto riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore. A nasty controversy ensued with local Liberals of Ukrainian origin.

They accused Ignatieff, the son of a Russian-born Canadian diplomat, of expressing "disdain" for Ukrainians in his 1993 book Blood and Belonging. But there's another chapter that could get him in trouble. That one is on Quebec.

Ignatieff's essay was a study of ethnic nationalism in which he lumped Quebec in with Serbia, Croatia, Kurdistan, Germany, Ukraine and Northern Ireland.

In his book, Ignatieff fancies himself "cosmopolitan" with a "post-nationalist spirit." He's so cosmopolitan that he has actually lived outside of Canada for the past 30 years. Though he says Quebec nationalism is the one he knows best, he also admits he had never ventured into "francophone Quebec" before he wrote the book.

This must explain why he writes that Quebec's "national day" is on June 28. Or that he says he speaks "French-French" as opposed to the "heavily accented Quebecois" spoken by someone he interviews. How reassuring is that for someone who wants to lead this country?

One of his research grounds was what he calls the "Two Clowns Cafe" in Old Montreal - yes, that's the "Deux Pierrots." He chatted with some "nationalists" he refers to as "the Other," with a capital O.

After they explain what Quebec nationalism is to them, Ignatieff writes with amazing condescension: "What can you say to such a deep myth? It is a feeling, and notoriously, feelings cannot be argued with."

Equally condescending is what he writes about a francophone he met in Trois Rivieres: "Nationalism gives him hope, and in Trois Rivieres, you need all the hope you can get."

On Bill 101, Ignatieff paints a sovereign Quebec as a place where rights would be trampled and courts neutered. Without the protection of Trudeau's Charter of Rights and the Supreme Court, he writes, "individuals would lose this right of appeal, and the way would be open to majoritarian ethnic nationalism."

Hence, this gem of a picture: "The language police are dispatched to happily bilingual towns in the Eastern Townships to photograph tiny English cardboard signs in corner stores."

For the crowning touch, he asks, as if sovereignists were a bunch of cretins: Since "it must be true that separation would be costly and traumatic, why do some Quebecois nationalists continue to insist upon it?"

In conclusion, the great cosmopolitan writes this final note: "It is much more a question of language and old resentments and a history of bitterness, real and invented, which seems more robust and full of life than any of our understandings."

The section on Quebec is shoddily researched. The Harvard professor offers no scholarly bibliography, only a list of six "further readings," including Mordecai Richler's O Canada, O Quebec and one francophone entry from 1967 by, of course, Pierre Trudeau.

In 1994, adding insult to injury, Blood and Belonging won the Gordon Montador Award and the $50,000 Lionel Gelber Prize for the best writing in English on international relations.

The essay also was made into a six-hour mini-series broadcasted on the CBC, in the United States, and on the BBC. This means millions of viewers were treated to Ignatieff's uninformed and prejudiced views on Quebec.

The final image of the section on Quebec closed in on the faces of worried anglophones, aboriginals and children of visible minorities with Ignatieff's voice asking ominously: If a state only protects its majority, will its minorities be safe?" This was a gross misrepresentation of Quebec society.

Since then, the ambitious Ignatieff has revised his views on Quebec somewhat, now saying that Bill 101 is an acceptable law. But last March, at the Liberal Party's convention, he still showed a profound misunderstanding of modern Quebec nationalism and of its language policies.

He said: "Canadian federalism has been the institutional condition for the transformation of Quebec," which, among other things, protected the French language. Most political scientists in Quebec, whether federalists or not, would beg to differ.

In 2003, Ignatieff also wrote in the New York Times he supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq, calling it the last hope for democracy and stability. In 2004, perhaps seeing most Canadians opposed it, he revised that opinion.

Posing as a great intellectual, Ignatieff has displayed an uncanny ability to speak of things he knows little about, then retracting when necessary.

When one looks at the current vacuum in the quality of leadership at so many levels of politics, that should make him a perfect candidate for prime minister.

[ridenrain]

Looks like the chosen one is going to be cut out.

Ignatieff may face challenge
Local Liberal considers running

`Conversations' held with NDP
Dec. 3, 2005. 01:00 AM
ROBERT BENZIE
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU


A local Liberal says he is so disillusioned with Liberal candidate Michael Ignatieff being parachuted into the Etobicoke-Lakeshore riding that he is seriously considering running against him.

Bruce Davis, a Toronto school board trustee and well-connected Liberal, told the Star he is pondering whether to run as an independent candidate in the Jan. 23 federal election.

Davis, a self-described "left-wing Liberal," says another possibility is he could contest the nomination to be the New Democratic Party's candidate at a meeting on Thursday.

"There have been conversations," said a federal NDP insider yesterday. "If Bruce were in fact to do this, he would be competing with other declared candidates and how that would turn out is anybody's guess."

Asked whether he would run against the party of which he has been a member since 1982, Davis said: "I am considering all of my options and that would certainly be within the realm of my options."

At issue is that Ignatieff, a Harvard University professor and an author who lives in Boston and is not from the west-end riding, was acclaimed on Wednesday night as the candidate to succeed veteran MP Jean Augustine. Ignatieff has mostly lived outside of Canada for 30 years.

"I'm just very, very disappointed in the entire way that this thing has transpired," Davis said. "It's not an issue of the Ukrainian community versus the candidate," he added, referring to a controversy over Ignatieff's comments in print about Ukrainian nationalism.

"I have been very, very clear about my interest in running for the nomination since January, 2004. I have discussed it many, many times with Jean Augustine and party officials and officials in the Prime Minister's office," Davis said.

The Liberal Party of Canada will hear an appeal of the nomination process in the riding today, but no decision is expected until next week at the earliest.

Davis emphasized he has "substantive public policy issues" with Ignatieff, who was a prominent backer of U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraq invasion.

"I'm a long-time party supporter, but I'm telling you I have very, very strong views about the war," said Davis, who strongly endorsed then-prime minister Jean Chrétien's decision not to join the war coalition in 2003.

Conservative candidate John Capobianco said he was "not surprised" that Davis is weighing a run as either an independent or New Democrat.

"Bruce is somebody who is from this community and this is something for the voters to decide," said Capobianco, who was born and raised in the riding.


Great way to fix that Democratic Deficit! What a poster-party for a disfunctional pack of desperate loosers.

[Jaime_Souviens]

Don't you usually have to get off the ground first
before you crash and burn?

[ridenrain]

Woops, looks like the Liberals Star Candidate and all around golded boy has been put in a witness protection program, or maybe he's just afraid to show his face.
[web]http://liberal.ca/bio_e.aspx?id=35023&type=can[/web]

[hwacker]

$1:

Mr. Ignatieff received a degree in History at the University of Toronto and a doctorate at Harvard University. He is a former Senior Research Fellow at King's College, Cambridge, and has held teaching posts at Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, the University of California, the University of London and the London School of Economics.

Anybody with a record like that can only be a full time BSer.

[ridenrain]

That's the problem.
He's more right wing than left so what's he doing hitching his cart to the wrong horse?