Good on you for pointing out the expected. Ignatieff was just visiting. As much as there was an outcry about the Conservatives “American-style attack ads” on Iggy, well they were right in this case. As you have said, when these ads point out truths they will be effective.
Why is it some in the media think it’s an automatic slight to call ads run by the Conservatives “American”? These are ads that have existed for a while here in Canada. Used by all three of the national parties. I’m guessing the BQ might run them too.
Only goes to build credibility for the Conservatives contrast ads against JT. The theme will undoubtedly continue to question his readiness to be PM. The more blunders he makes, the more likely they will succeed.
Is it astounding to anyone else that despite Ignatieff’s formidable intelligence, he still doesn’t understand why he lost the election? His “election debrief book” revealed very little insight into his own arrogance and self-absorption. Some insider exposed the fact that he didn’t bother rehearsing his talking points before the debate in which Layton decked him. “I was an excellent debater in university. Why should I practice?” Guess that academic intelligence does not equal self knowledge.
I hope you don’t mind Warren if I use this space for a personal matter… I want to apologize to you Bill, for biting your head off the other day. It’s not a very good excuse, but I have been attacked before because of my nuanced position on the environment and your questioning really raised my hackles. Regardless, I went too far and said a few things that I regret having said. I may vehemently disagree with parts of your approach to a problem we both feel is extremely important, but please believe me when I say that I do not hate you for it. I will try very hard in future to be more thoughtful and understanding of your views. Please accept my sincere apology.
By the way, you appeared to be curious, so… My name is Dave and I’m just a worthless schmo from BC who is using Mr Kinsella’s good offices to shoot my mouth off from time to time. But like you I have been focused almost laser-like on the environment, in my case for close to 5 decades and sometimes I get a bit carried away when discussing it. But you know, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that we likely share more in common than either of us might think.
Thanks Dave. I guess blogging, like democracy, is supposed to be messy at times if people are speaking their minds. To be candid, I have only one or two science course post high school, so I am utterly dependent on what “experts” say about the environment, the economy and species extinction. But what I read (from credible sites and major newspapers/journals) is disturbing. The next ten years should be crucial for all these issues. But there is spin and dirty laundry on all sides, to be sure…
Remember it being said before and during the 2011 election campaign that Ignatieff the master debater was going to wipe the floor with Harper and Layton in the election debate? Instead, Layton drove a shiv into him and eviscerated him.
Ignatieff made the mistake of treating the world of politics like it was the world of academia, being accustomed to talking TO people instead of WITH them. The backroom guys botched that one but good.
Not a shock, not at all. I never liked him, was insulted personally that he thought he could just waltz back into Canada after being gone for decades and rise to the top of the political world leadership and easily become the next PM. I never understood why there were so many in the Lib party who thought he was a wonderful choice/idea, so many that they totally undermined Dion (who despite his language issue and despite not being the most charismatic leader ever I did think had real leadership potential and not simply because of his environmental issues understanding but also the leadership he demonstrated against the Quebecois Nationalists over the years) and allowed Harper and Mike Duffy to define him as a weak leader by creating that obvious division within the ranks of the party. I’ve always understood that book/academic smarts and political smarts are not the same thing, that indeed academic smarts can actually be a potential blind spot because it creates a false assumption of capability for the political arena is someone is not careful, and did we ever see that in action with Ignatief.
The only point to sell him in the last election I could point to was that for all of his many many faults, problems, and issues he would still be a far less bad and damaging PM than Harper, which spoke not to Ignatief’s quality but to just how extremely dangerous Harper was/is. I’ve only kept arguing for the Libs to be the ones to stop the Harper CPC over the past decade because the Canadian voting demographics tell me that the plurality of unaligned voters (as in those who vote, not the potentials, the actuals) tend to be centrists, and therefore the Libs are going to be the most likely to gather them over the NDP.
Ignatief made that call the hardest it ever was, but ironically enough the way Layton and the NDP vote rose in the late campaign causing that massive shift outside of Quebec to the Harper CPC despite the issues with him and it shown in minority underscored my point for all to see. Mind you these voters were treated with contempt by NDP partisans election night and afterwards as “blue Liberals”, yet again failing to understand the reality of Canadian voting demographics. I mean if Layton could not win outside of Quebec where the voters are farther left than anywhere else when the Separatist Bloc vote is collapsing and needing another home despite the issues with Harper and the clearly horrible leadership choice AND reality of Ignatief, well that speaks volumes for the realities of political demographics in this nation to me.
I cannot think of a worse choice the federal Libs have made for a leader in my lifetime, Ignatief was always to me the total anti-package. So it is no wonder the ads defining him as “just visiting” were so powerful and worked so well. However, the assumption that because they were true means the CPC ads defining Trudeau as “not ready” will gain validity/truth to them, well that I think is an assumption not so well founded. Trudeau is an unusual case at unusual timing working to his advantage. He is someone most Canadians have known or felt they have known since he was a child.
He has been a familiar presence to them, and because he was raised by what most Canadians still believe to have been the greatest PM in their lifetimes if not ever in the history of Canada that gives him not just the mantle of his father, it also means that many will assume he by watching his father learned a great deal about leadership and how to run a successful campaign/country because of it, and frankly given the way he won the Lib leadership (which was clearly more than just name recognition at work, 80% first ballot wins take real work to create, not just showing up with a famous name) that may not be an unreasonable belief. He is also going to be expected to make the usual new leader gaffes as he settles into the position and going into his first election campaign, and will have at the minimum the usual latitude for such, but many of the so called “bozo eruptions” to the political classes appear to many outside that bubble to a leader being unscripted and being genuine/real, instead of this artificial polished creation, something which many Canadians have clearly wearied of from all sides.
Trudeau also has another quality that I think sets him far apart from Ignatief aside from his name and his personal warmth/charisma (and anyone that denies he has powerful charisma is clearly blinded to reality and clearly has no business discussing politics, love him or hate him that part of him is clearly obvious). He approaches political leadership not as the single indispensable man approach that we have seen Harper and the CPC define the position as but as the leader of a team approach, which is far more consistent with traditional Canadian political dynamics. I suspect that also will be a powerful attractor for many who have tired of a government that brands itself as the “Harper government” as opposed to “The Government of Canada led by PM…” That he would build a team and delegate power to them in a traditional cabinet run government can be a powerful counter-argument to any attempts to paint him as unready to be a leader, both in terms of his own ability and in terms of showing he would not be trying to do it all himself as opposed to the current leadership of this country.
So those who think that Ignatief having shown his true colours here that were there for all to see even without the ads the CPC ran against him gives weight to the CPC credibility when it comes to the redefinition attempts of Trudeau, well calling it apples to oranges is wrong because both are citrus fruit whereas the comparison between these two leaders is more like apples to cod liver oil for the reasons just laid out. Ignaitef was one the greatest “leadership”mistakes of the Lib party ever and he caused many traditional Lib voters to not come out or to hold their noses and vote elsewhere, Trudeau though is almost certainly not only going to pull back in the vast majority of those voters for the Libs but he also clearly has the potential to bring in fresh voters to the party as shown by how well he shows, wears on people, and fundraises for the party.
This is BTW not even beginning to point out that it is likely that the approach Harper used to such great success in the last three campaign will be as successful now that he has so negatively defined himself as a PM, nor that he has governed for so long, nor that going to the same well every time eventually wears out (as shown by the hidden agenda approach, which was still true as his tenure more than proved, the hidden agenda wasn’t socon, it was process based though which most somehow managed to miss) regardless of the truth or falsity of the message. I deliberately kept to Trudeaus innate positives to make the point that he came with so many whereas Ignatief had only his academic intellect which if anything proved in the end to be a major negative in itself.
I normally would not say this of someone, but good riddance to bad rubbish Ignatief, you were a disaster for this country and you played a significant role in enabling the worst PM in our history to attain his first (and hopefully only) majority government. Thanks a bunch…NOT!!!
1) “Famous Canadian” – uh, no dude. Not now, not EVER.
2) he never WAS truly looking to stay in our borders…..which leads me to a no. 3) the Harper ad machine was bang-on…..and leaves it just a bit more credible than this time yesterday.
Had we elected him, he’d have stayed. Since we didn’t, he chose to take advantage of a career opportunity elsewhere. It’s not like anyone wanted him to stick around.
I certainly wouldn’t hold it against Stephen Harper if following his first defeat as a party leader he too had left Canada and never returned. 😉
He is a famous canadian Bobby. He’s not a celebrity actor but he’s recognized as a top academic in international circles. He’s a smart guy who tried to serve his country and we Canadians treated him like crap…. sad really… He was not a great politician as it turns out, but he deserves a certain amount of respect. I also find it disgusting that anyone would take a parting shot at him now. If a first class university offers a job, why shouldn’t he take it? He came to Canada to serve Canadians and they said ‘no thank you’. I don’t expect him to stick around just for show if he has a better job offer from somewhere else.
Michael Ignatieff has held academic posts at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and U of T, worked as a TV and radio broadcaster and editorial columnist for The Observer, won a Gemini Award for his documentary series “Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism, won the Gordon Montador Award for Best Canadian Book on Social Issues and the University of Toronto’s Lionel Gelber Prize (for his book of the same name), won the Governor General’s Literary Award and the British Royal Society of Literature’s Heinemann Prize for his book “The Russian Album”, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his book “Scar Tissue”, was elected to the House of Commons as the MP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore in 2006, served as interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from November 2008 until he was elected leader in May 2009, has contributed articles to publications such as The Globe & Mail, The New Republic and The New York Times, and has received 11 honorary doctorates to date.
Sadly, Ridiculosity, and to Ignatieff’s everlasting shame, he only has degrees from Harvard, Cambridge and Toronto (not a third tier university like Calgary), he’s only been employed as a tenured professor at Harvard and also worked at UBC, Cambridge, Oxford, University of London, London School of Economics, and University of Toronto (but not as a mailroom clerk for Esso), and although an internationally respected intellect & best selling author, he has yet to take ten years to write the definitively unreadable book on hockey.
Depends on what you consider remarkable, but I’ll play along: 1) Assembled 5 Ikea cabinets without swearing even once, 2) Endured the coldest Manitoban winter in a hundred years with a smile on my face, and 3) Googled Gordon Montador, Lionel Gelber, and Mr. Heinemann and discovered that none of them played in April Wine. Cheers!
Whether he got talked into coming back or it was all his idea doesn’t really matter to to me, he was clearly a bad fit from the outset in no small part because he had not been a part of the political discourse of this nation for decades. As for paying for his sins, can’t agree with you there given the internal factionalism he endorsed in his favour until he managed to become the worst leader I’ve ever seen the Libs put up. Ignatief was willing to employ (or at the very least profit from) some really slimy tactics to prevent Dion from unifying his party behind him, it was his side more than Rae’s that took the loss to him so hard and it was clearly his side that was the leader of the factional infighting that helped make it so easy to paint Dion as an incompetent leader. This is something he deserves to own for the rest of his life.
As to your last point, that is just offensive. The problem was never about how well he did outside of Canada, it was that he thought that success made him an ideal candidate to lead this country without putting the time in from the ground up as it were. Harper, for all I oppose him utterly spent decades working in Canadian political environs to get where he is. If Ignatief came back to set up a business or something that would be fine, but being a sitting PM or even a party leader is not something anyone should be able to walk into after spending essentially all of their adult life outside the country working (I am not including those who are doing so in the service of Canada, I mean those who are doing so because that is where they found work, more power to them for doing so of course, but it is not an inconsequential consideration where politics are concerned I would argue) and then coming in as some sort of saviour, which was how he came you know.
My problem with him is that despite being a Canadian citizen he felt/read like a carpetbagger to borrow an expression, and I was far from the only one. He also said he was back for the long term, well I don’t see three years being the long term myself, and he had to know how it would be seen if he went back to Harvard even before the next election from the one he lost. No he deserves every bit of scorn and contempt he has coming to him, and to deserve slack you need to do something to earn it, which he has never done. As for paying for his sins, given he stayed employable and apparently Harvard is fine taking him back, kind of hard to see how much he really paid aside from adding to his reputation nearly killing a historic federal party, and which might have died were it not for Trudeau apparently managing to resurrect it.
No, Ignatief can never be forgotten for what he did, nor does he deserve to be, nor should those who thought he was the saviour this country needed for that matter in my books. The whole idea was moronic from the outset.
He shouldn’t be cut any “slack” – he should be held accountable for statements he made while trying to win the trust and support of voters. This is a slap in the face to hundreds, if not thousands, of Canadians who went door to door in 2011 vouching for Ignatieff’s credibility. He insisted that the Conservative “just visiting” ads were beyond the pale but they obviously weren’t. If he can’t be in Canada on his terms (i.e. as PM) then he doesn’t care to be here at all. His political career, such as it was, was nothing more than a monument to vanity and personal ego. What a sorry episode in the history of the Liberal party.
Speaking of holding people accountable for statements they make, SHHHHHH….. listen to the wisdom of the mailroom clerk from Esso now punching considerably above his weight as the PM of Canada:
“Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status …”
“Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it”
“I was asked to speak about Canadian politics. It may not be true, but it’s legendary that if you’re like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians.”
“Whether Canada ends up as one national government, or two national governments, or several national governments or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion.”
Perhaps Health Canada should investigate the long term effects of licking the chemicals used in envelopes and stamp glue – back in the day – particularly for neurological toxins as a common place workplace hazard for naive but aspirational mail room clerks with an apparent hatred for Canada and Canadians.
Who cares if he was just visiting??? Obviously if he was the PM and had not overseen the destruction of his party he would still be in Ottawa now, not headed for Harvard. He’s just visiting because the reason for his coming here was politics. That is no longer an option, so he’s gone back to his day job – academics. So why shouldn’t he take a job at a top university if it’s outside of Canada? Why begrudge him success in his career?
This development got me thinking seriously about our Lord’s second coming. Wouldn’t it be grand if he revealed himself to be a Canadian! But what if his bearings ended slightly off and he landed at Harvard Yard, having over shot Canadian territory.
I shudder to think what would be done to this Canadian in the name of genuine Canadian authenticity. Politics, ain’t it a peach.
Well, he was and is a dingbat. He is back where he belongs.
He was discredited many times along the sorry path he chose.My favourite is Narduar vs. Ignatieff. My second favourite is the two David Rees screeds, check them out if you can find them.
Who was it in the Liberal Party who thought this was a good idea exactly?
Wow … just wow … did everybody here fall for the HarperCon$ character assassination tactics or what?
The only real mistake Ignatieff made was playing “nice” with Harper. Plain and simple.
As for going to an Ivy League university, did it occur to anyone here that it is an economic decision on his part? He’s going where he can make the most doing something he has done for a long time, and done very well at.
While Ignatieff’s political instincts may have been questionable, his intellect is far, far more developed than Harper and his gang of bandits put together.
Looking at it another way: If you sat on your hands because you didn’t like Ignatieff, then you handed 2011 to Harper every bit as much as Harper tried to steal the election with voter suppression tactics.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch, the PM of Canada is a fishing buddy with the admitted crackhead Mayor of Toronto.
While others continue to howl over Ignatieff’s audacity entering federal politics in Canada & his newest outrageous fortune with the latest Harvard appointment. Good grief.
I can’t believe how mean spirited some people are. The level of judgement and poison being spewed is shocking to me. I was never a supporter, but really, the snideness is just beyond tolerable. What did Mr. Ignatieff ever do to you?
Congratulations to Mr. Ignatieff on his new position. He’s probably well shed of Canada and it’s angry politicos.
What did he do to me? Well, he decided his leading the Libs was more important than anything else, which caused him to re-fight the leadership race he lost to Dion and help weaken Dion and the Lib brand further which in turn allowed Harper to stay in power in the next minority. Then once he finally became leader of the Libs he ran one of the worst campaigns against a leader he should have known would smear him after watching what Harperco did to Dion. Worse, he was so bad he weakened what was left of the Lib brand so much that Harper got a majority. So that is what he did to me, and I suspect when you get down to it that is why so many others have such anger towards him. Then, after promising to be staying around regardless of whether he won or not he doesn’t even last the first term after his defeat as leader? You don’t understand why that might trigger some ire and anger? Really?
As for angry politicos, have you even looked at the state of American federal politics for the past three decades?!? Where do you think Harper learned his style from? Mr Ignatief may be a wonderful person on a political level, worthy of respect as an academic even, but as far as he goes as a political figure he was one of the greater disasters Canadian federal politics has seen in the modern age. Things like that tend to stir up ire, especially when you waltz in like he did and the once he was out did what his critics all said he would even after he swore he wouldn’t.
Hi Scotian,
I’m as upset as you are re: Harper and the damage happening in Ottawa. I just can’t be bothered to wind myself up over Ignatieff. He did what he did….probably plenty of humiliation in the loss.
Let’s hope our energy can be better spent on ousting the CPC in 2015.
Thanks very much for your post, it really did help me understand your feelings on the matter.
I just spent an hour writing a very long and detailed post explaining how you cannot possibly be as upset as I and why in great detail, but then I realized, what is the point? I know you cannot be, few people can, but to explain why and turn it into some sort of measuring contest serves no point. I will simply say this about that, you need to be careful about how you claim to know or share the feelings of another you do not know, because sometimes that well meant sentiment can be like pouring salt in a wound, or a contemptuous slap in the face even though it is not meant as such.
As for fighting the CPC in the next election, I’ve been fighting them in every one, not going to stop now. However, I have more than enough in me to share some for someone who did as much damage as Ignatief to this country while I wait for that election cycle to begin. His actions are a significant cause of the horror that we have today in Ottawa, I am not sure Harper could have made that majority were it not for Ignatief, he was a leader who literally drove long time Liberal voters away in droves and how clearly never resonated in the wider public or even within his party outside of his dedicated fan club. So I hold all those I see as having played a significant role in the rise and maintaining of Harper in the PMO as worthy of my attention,especially when they come back to my attention proving they were as bad as I thought, which Ignatief just did.
I am glad I was able to answer your question about what he did that caused me and I am certain so many others to feel a personal wound from him. It was not merely his horrible leadership once he became Lib leader, it was all the elements that led him to that office and the incredible damage that crap caused for his party and because of it for the wider country. I am not a Lib, I don’t do the party/leader right or wrong thing, never have and never will. I do though try to stay informed in what happens in all the major federal parties so as to be as informed a voter as I can be, as I see my civic duty being not just to vote but to do so in an informed manner, and when an issue comes up I believe in strongly enough to get involved beyond merely voting.
I also make it a point to work every election day driving voters to campaigns and then acting as a ballot scrutinizer for whichever candidate/party that election I choose to support, because I believe strongly in the importance of maintaining the process and the legitimacy of it, and that is also one of the reasons why I have such searing rage where Harper is concerned, because I am a process geek and it matters to me a great deal. I in many respects care more about the fundamental machinery which drives our system than who runs it politically speaking (which is not to say I don’t care at all, of course I do, just that for me the process itself is even more important than the flavour of the driver/master of the day, well until the rise of Harper that is). That is why Harper was such a unique rage generator for me, and why Ignatief by enabling him so much earns a little slice of it even to this day, and mark my words, what you saw towards him from me truly is but a tiny slice of what I have for Harper.
Given Ignatief’s own academic background he should have understood so much of this too, but either he didn’t bother/care enough to think about it, or he let his own lust for power blind him. Either way though he has richly earned far more than anything every critic of his here at this site have dished out IMHO. When you place your own ego and gratification that far ahead of the good of a nation, well in my books you deserve all the contempt you get, and when you swear something you should hold to it. If he had waited even until Harper was driven from office before returning to the USA/Harvard, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a slap in the face to Canadians (and I wonder how much worse it is for those who actually believed in him, something I never did), but he didn’t.
Indeed, one could point to the fact he fails to understand this as yet another piece of evidence that he was unfit and unsuited to play at this level of federal Canadian politics, because you really have to be incredibly ignorant about how the basics of politics works at this level to not understand just how offensive this move is. If anything he showed yet again why he was so wrong for Canada (still better than Harper, but no PM would be better than a destroyer of his nature).
At least Trudeau is not Ignatief, because he is what I see as the best chance to remove Harper, and clearly so does Harper and the CPC given the way they spend much more time worrying about him and the third place Libs than they do about Mulcair and the Official Opposition NDP. Mulcair and the NDP also appear to see it that way given the amount of time they spend on him too. It would also seem the public tends to agree going by the polling pattern since Trudeau first became Lib leader. He may be young, he may not be the most experienced leader out there, but he connects well, feels real to most people (as in other than the political chattering class) whether they support him or not, and appears to know how to put together a strong team as demonstrated by his 80% leadership race first vote/ballot win (that does not happen on name recognition alone), and by the overall leadership he has shown so far in carefully yet consistently defining what the Liberal brand stands for, which given how both his opponents have claimed it stands for nothing in the past several elections aside from corruption is not only important but essential.
He is also doing a good job of rebuilding his party finances AND the fundraising mechanisms, and from this outsider perspective he looks like he is also doing a good job of rebuilding the riding machinery of his party, of which there is a lot of resources to harness so long as you can inspire them to come back after this last decade, which Trudeau does seem to be managing. It also shows just how bad Ignatief was as a leader that someone as young as Trudeau can demonstrate far better leadership in action as the third party leader than Ignatief could as LOO, as these are tasks Ignatief needed to have been doing and didn’t as leader. Personally, I am finding Trudeaus ability as a leader more than a little surprising and the first sign of real hope I have seen in a decade.
I also see him as the sole agent for hope and optimism in this cycle, with Layton gone the NDP have lost that card, Mulcair has competence on his side, but charm and warmth and hope…not so much. The more one looks at Trudeau, the more Ignatief suffers by contrast as a leader, and given how accomplished an academic leader he was in his life prior to entering politics shows that just because you are good at one aspect of life or kind of leadership does not mean you will be fit for another, and just because you are young and inexperienced in the leadership position does not automatically make you unfit to lead either in the case of Trudeau. In of so many ways does all this show just how horrible Ignatief truly was on all fronts from the outset, and those that thought he was the saviour really deserve to wear it as much as Ignatief himself in my books, that was one of the truly great political blunders of a lifetime.
You’re right, Scotian, it was presumptuous of me to suggest that I am as upset as you are. Again, thank you for your thoughtful analysis. I’m sure you know that you are not alone in hoping (and working) towards change in 2015.
Thanks. I know I am far from alone these days, it just saddens me that it took this long for enough Canadians to finally start realizing that what Harper was/is is something alien to our political culture, and the damage he is out to do is deep, fundamental, and in far too many places unrecoverable from. I do appreciate your evaluations of my rather lengthy tomes, I know I am something of an atypical person for the internet world, a long winded writer, so it is nice when I find out someone actually does read them from time to time. I am sort of old school in that I believe in laying out my reasons for my views as well as what they are and what I base them on, a style of writing/speaking that does not seem to fit well in the modern twitterverse world. While I appreciate pithy and concise, I myself rather suck at it, so I stick to what I am good at.
While you did upset a little, I got the feeling after reflecting (which was why I deleted my first response and came back with what I did) that you hadn’t meant to offend, so I thought I’d instead point out that saying something like that to someone you haven’t gotten a sense of first can with the best of intentions backfire. I thank you for coming back with reasoned calm responses and actually not just asking a question but actually replying to it when answered, I don’t see that so much these days, and I appreciate it. Thank you.
Good on you for pointing out the expected. Ignatieff was just visiting. As much as there was an outcry about the Conservatives “American-style attack ads” on Iggy, well they were right in this case. As you have said, when these ads point out truths they will be effective.
Why is it some in the media think it’s an automatic slight to call ads run by the Conservatives “American”? These are ads that have existed for a while here in Canada. Used by all three of the national parties. I’m guessing the BQ might run them too.
Only goes to build credibility for the Conservatives contrast ads against JT. The theme will undoubtedly continue to question his readiness to be PM. The more blunders he makes, the more likely they will succeed.
Back to his happy place.
Ugh… Don’t let the door hit you on the… etc.
Is it astounding to anyone else that despite Ignatieff’s formidable intelligence, he still doesn’t understand why he lost the election? His “election debrief book” revealed very little insight into his own arrogance and self-absorption. Some insider exposed the fact that he didn’t bother rehearsing his talking points before the debate in which Layton decked him. “I was an excellent debater in university. Why should I practice?” Guess that academic intelligence does not equal self knowledge.
I hope you don’t mind Warren if I use this space for a personal matter… I want to apologize to you Bill, for biting your head off the other day. It’s not a very good excuse, but I have been attacked before because of my nuanced position on the environment and your questioning really raised my hackles. Regardless, I went too far and said a few things that I regret having said. I may vehemently disagree with parts of your approach to a problem we both feel is extremely important, but please believe me when I say that I do not hate you for it. I will try very hard in future to be more thoughtful and understanding of your views. Please accept my sincere apology.
By the way, you appeared to be curious, so… My name is Dave and I’m just a worthless schmo from BC who is using Mr Kinsella’s good offices to shoot my mouth off from time to time. But like you I have been focused almost laser-like on the environment, in my case for close to 5 decades and sometimes I get a bit carried away when discussing it. But you know, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that we likely share more in common than either of us might think.
Cheers!
Thanks Dave. I guess blogging, like democracy, is supposed to be messy at times if people are speaking their minds. To be candid, I have only one or two science course post high school, so I am utterly dependent on what “experts” say about the environment, the economy and species extinction. But what I read (from credible sites and major newspapers/journals) is disturbing. The next ten years should be crucial for all these issues. But there is spin and dirty laundry on all sides, to be sure…
Remember it being said before and during the 2011 election campaign that Ignatieff the master debater was going to wipe the floor with Harper and Layton in the election debate? Instead, Layton drove a shiv into him and eviscerated him.
Ignatieff made the mistake of treating the world of politics like it was the world of academia, being accustomed to talking TO people instead of WITH them. The backroom guys botched that one but good.
I have come to the conclusion, after all my many years, that academia and politics have little to do with each other.
Not a shock, not at all. I never liked him, was insulted personally that he thought he could just waltz back into Canada after being gone for decades and rise to the top of the political world leadership and easily become the next PM. I never understood why there were so many in the Lib party who thought he was a wonderful choice/idea, so many that they totally undermined Dion (who despite his language issue and despite not being the most charismatic leader ever I did think had real leadership potential and not simply because of his environmental issues understanding but also the leadership he demonstrated against the Quebecois Nationalists over the years) and allowed Harper and Mike Duffy to define him as a weak leader by creating that obvious division within the ranks of the party. I’ve always understood that book/academic smarts and political smarts are not the same thing, that indeed academic smarts can actually be a potential blind spot because it creates a false assumption of capability for the political arena is someone is not careful, and did we ever see that in action with Ignatief.
The only point to sell him in the last election I could point to was that for all of his many many faults, problems, and issues he would still be a far less bad and damaging PM than Harper, which spoke not to Ignatief’s quality but to just how extremely dangerous Harper was/is. I’ve only kept arguing for the Libs to be the ones to stop the Harper CPC over the past decade because the Canadian voting demographics tell me that the plurality of unaligned voters (as in those who vote, not the potentials, the actuals) tend to be centrists, and therefore the Libs are going to be the most likely to gather them over the NDP.
Ignatief made that call the hardest it ever was, but ironically enough the way Layton and the NDP vote rose in the late campaign causing that massive shift outside of Quebec to the Harper CPC despite the issues with him and it shown in minority underscored my point for all to see. Mind you these voters were treated with contempt by NDP partisans election night and afterwards as “blue Liberals”, yet again failing to understand the reality of Canadian voting demographics. I mean if Layton could not win outside of Quebec where the voters are farther left than anywhere else when the Separatist Bloc vote is collapsing and needing another home despite the issues with Harper and the clearly horrible leadership choice AND reality of Ignatief, well that speaks volumes for the realities of political demographics in this nation to me.
I cannot think of a worse choice the federal Libs have made for a leader in my lifetime, Ignatief was always to me the total anti-package. So it is no wonder the ads defining him as “just visiting” were so powerful and worked so well. However, the assumption that because they were true means the CPC ads defining Trudeau as “not ready” will gain validity/truth to them, well that I think is an assumption not so well founded. Trudeau is an unusual case at unusual timing working to his advantage. He is someone most Canadians have known or felt they have known since he was a child.
He has been a familiar presence to them, and because he was raised by what most Canadians still believe to have been the greatest PM in their lifetimes if not ever in the history of Canada that gives him not just the mantle of his father, it also means that many will assume he by watching his father learned a great deal about leadership and how to run a successful campaign/country because of it, and frankly given the way he won the Lib leadership (which was clearly more than just name recognition at work, 80% first ballot wins take real work to create, not just showing up with a famous name) that may not be an unreasonable belief. He is also going to be expected to make the usual new leader gaffes as he settles into the position and going into his first election campaign, and will have at the minimum the usual latitude for such, but many of the so called “bozo eruptions” to the political classes appear to many outside that bubble to a leader being unscripted and being genuine/real, instead of this artificial polished creation, something which many Canadians have clearly wearied of from all sides.
Trudeau also has another quality that I think sets him far apart from Ignatief aside from his name and his personal warmth/charisma (and anyone that denies he has powerful charisma is clearly blinded to reality and clearly has no business discussing politics, love him or hate him that part of him is clearly obvious). He approaches political leadership not as the single indispensable man approach that we have seen Harper and the CPC define the position as but as the leader of a team approach, which is far more consistent with traditional Canadian political dynamics. I suspect that also will be a powerful attractor for many who have tired of a government that brands itself as the “Harper government” as opposed to “The Government of Canada led by PM…” That he would build a team and delegate power to them in a traditional cabinet run government can be a powerful counter-argument to any attempts to paint him as unready to be a leader, both in terms of his own ability and in terms of showing he would not be trying to do it all himself as opposed to the current leadership of this country.
So those who think that Ignatief having shown his true colours here that were there for all to see even without the ads the CPC ran against him gives weight to the CPC credibility when it comes to the redefinition attempts of Trudeau, well calling it apples to oranges is wrong because both are citrus fruit whereas the comparison between these two leaders is more like apples to cod liver oil for the reasons just laid out. Ignaitef was one the greatest “leadership”mistakes of the Lib party ever and he caused many traditional Lib voters to not come out or to hold their noses and vote elsewhere, Trudeau though is almost certainly not only going to pull back in the vast majority of those voters for the Libs but he also clearly has the potential to bring in fresh voters to the party as shown by how well he shows, wears on people, and fundraises for the party.
This is BTW not even beginning to point out that it is likely that the approach Harper used to such great success in the last three campaign will be as successful now that he has so negatively defined himself as a PM, nor that he has governed for so long, nor that going to the same well every time eventually wears out (as shown by the hidden agenda approach, which was still true as his tenure more than proved, the hidden agenda wasn’t socon, it was process based though which most somehow managed to miss) regardless of the truth or falsity of the message. I deliberately kept to Trudeaus innate positives to make the point that he came with so many whereas Ignatief had only his academic intellect which if anything proved in the end to be a major negative in itself.
I normally would not say this of someone, but good riddance to bad rubbish Ignatief, you were a disaster for this country and you played a significant role in enabling the worst PM in our history to attain his first (and hopefully only) majority government. Thanks a bunch…NOT!!!
For the love of God…
Don’t you think it’s about time we cut the fucking guy a little slack?
He got talked into coming back and ended up almost destroying the Liberal Party.
He’s paid for his sins (and those of others involved in that particular fiasco).
Can’t we just let the man enjoy the rest of his life?
Or is this (yet another) example of Famous Canadian bashing: we’re only too eager to criticize our own when they do well outside our borders.
I’d agree with you except for 2 points:
1) “Famous Canadian” – uh, no dude. Not now, not EVER.
2) he never WAS truly looking to stay in our borders…..which leads me to a no. 3) the Harper ad machine was bang-on…..and leaves it just a bit more credible than this time yesterday.
How do we define “looking to stay?”
Had we elected him, he’d have stayed. Since we didn’t, he chose to take advantage of a career opportunity elsewhere. It’s not like anyone wanted him to stick around.
I certainly wouldn’t hold it against Stephen Harper if following his first defeat as a party leader he too had left Canada and never returned. 😉
He is a famous canadian Bobby. He’s not a celebrity actor but he’s recognized as a top academic in international circles. He’s a smart guy who tried to serve his country and we Canadians treated him like crap…. sad really… He was not a great politician as it turns out, but he deserves a certain amount of respect. I also find it disgusting that anyone would take a parting shot at him now. If a first class university offers a job, why shouldn’t he take it? He came to Canada to serve Canadians and they said ‘no thank you’. I don’t expect him to stick around just for show if he has a better job offer from somewhere else.
He’s a Famous Canadian? Sorry, I only agree with half of that statement and I will let you pick which half.
Michael Ignatieff has held academic posts at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and U of T, worked as a TV and radio broadcaster and editorial columnist for The Observer, won a Gemini Award for his documentary series “Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism, won the Gordon Montador Award for Best Canadian Book on Social Issues and the University of Toronto’s Lionel Gelber Prize (for his book of the same name), won the Governor General’s Literary Award and the British Royal Society of Literature’s Heinemann Prize for his book “The Russian Album”, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his book “Scar Tissue”, was elected to the House of Commons as the MP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore in 2006, served as interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from November 2008 until he was elected leader in May 2009, has contributed articles to publications such as The Globe & Mail, The New Republic and The New York Times, and has received 11 honorary doctorates to date.
What have you done lately? Anything remarkable?
Sadly, Ridiculosity, and to Ignatieff’s everlasting shame, he only has degrees from Harvard, Cambridge and Toronto (not a third tier university like Calgary), he’s only been employed as a tenured professor at Harvard and also worked at UBC, Cambridge, Oxford, University of London, London School of Economics, and University of Toronto (but not as a mailroom clerk for Esso), and although an internationally respected intellect & best selling author, he has yet to take ten years to write the definitively unreadable book on hockey.
Oh the shame, the shame………..
Depends on what you consider remarkable, but I’ll play along: 1) Assembled 5 Ikea cabinets without swearing even once, 2) Endured the coldest Manitoban winter in a hundred years with a smile on my face, and 3) Googled Gordon Montador, Lionel Gelber, and Mr. Heinemann and discovered that none of them played in April Wine. Cheers!
Thank you for providing such a detailed example of unremarkable
Ridiculosity:
Whether he got talked into coming back or it was all his idea doesn’t really matter to to me, he was clearly a bad fit from the outset in no small part because he had not been a part of the political discourse of this nation for decades. As for paying for his sins, can’t agree with you there given the internal factionalism he endorsed in his favour until he managed to become the worst leader I’ve ever seen the Libs put up. Ignatief was willing to employ (or at the very least profit from) some really slimy tactics to prevent Dion from unifying his party behind him, it was his side more than Rae’s that took the loss to him so hard and it was clearly his side that was the leader of the factional infighting that helped make it so easy to paint Dion as an incompetent leader. This is something he deserves to own for the rest of his life.
As to your last point, that is just offensive. The problem was never about how well he did outside of Canada, it was that he thought that success made him an ideal candidate to lead this country without putting the time in from the ground up as it were. Harper, for all I oppose him utterly spent decades working in Canadian political environs to get where he is. If Ignatief came back to set up a business or something that would be fine, but being a sitting PM or even a party leader is not something anyone should be able to walk into after spending essentially all of their adult life outside the country working (I am not including those who are doing so in the service of Canada, I mean those who are doing so because that is where they found work, more power to them for doing so of course, but it is not an inconsequential consideration where politics are concerned I would argue) and then coming in as some sort of saviour, which was how he came you know.
My problem with him is that despite being a Canadian citizen he felt/read like a carpetbagger to borrow an expression, and I was far from the only one. He also said he was back for the long term, well I don’t see three years being the long term myself, and he had to know how it would be seen if he went back to Harvard even before the next election from the one he lost. No he deserves every bit of scorn and contempt he has coming to him, and to deserve slack you need to do something to earn it, which he has never done. As for paying for his sins, given he stayed employable and apparently Harvard is fine taking him back, kind of hard to see how much he really paid aside from adding to his reputation nearly killing a historic federal party, and which might have died were it not for Trudeau apparently managing to resurrect it.
No, Ignatief can never be forgotten for what he did, nor does he deserve to be, nor should those who thought he was the saviour this country needed for that matter in my books. The whole idea was moronic from the outset.
He shouldn’t be cut any “slack” – he should be held accountable for statements he made while trying to win the trust and support of voters. This is a slap in the face to hundreds, if not thousands, of Canadians who went door to door in 2011 vouching for Ignatieff’s credibility. He insisted that the Conservative “just visiting” ads were beyond the pale but they obviously weren’t. If he can’t be in Canada on his terms (i.e. as PM) then he doesn’t care to be here at all. His political career, such as it was, was nothing more than a monument to vanity and personal ego. What a sorry episode in the history of the Liberal party.
Speaking of holding people accountable for statements they make, SHHHHHH….. listen to the wisdom of the mailroom clerk from Esso now punching considerably above his weight as the PM of Canada:
“Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status …”
“Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it”
“I was asked to speak about Canadian politics. It may not be true, but it’s legendary that if you’re like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians.”
“Whether Canada ends up as one national government, or two national governments, or several national governments or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion.”
Perhaps Health Canada should investigate the long term effects of licking the chemicals used in envelopes and stamp glue – back in the day – particularly for neurological toxins as a common place workplace hazard for naive but aspirational mail room clerks with an apparent hatred for Canada and Canadians.
http://unseatharper.ca/harper-quotes.php
Who cares if he was just visiting??? Obviously if he was the PM and had not overseen the destruction of his party he would still be in Ottawa now, not headed for Harvard. He’s just visiting because the reason for his coming here was politics. That is no longer an option, so he’s gone back to his day job – academics. So why shouldn’t he take a job at a top university if it’s outside of Canada? Why begrudge him success in his career?
Warren,
This development got me thinking seriously about our Lord’s second coming. Wouldn’t it be grand if he revealed himself to be a Canadian! But what if his bearings ended slightly off and he landed at Harvard Yard, having over shot Canadian territory.
I shudder to think what would be done to this Canadian in the name of genuine Canadian authenticity. Politics, ain’t it a peach.
Well, he was and is a dingbat. He is back where he belongs.
He was discredited many times along the sorry path he chose.My favourite is Narduar vs. Ignatieff. My second favourite is the two David Rees screeds, check them out if you can find them.
Who was it in the Liberal Party who thought this was a good idea exactly?
Too big to fail as the saying goes these days.
Wow … just wow … did everybody here fall for the HarperCon$ character assassination tactics or what?
The only real mistake Ignatieff made was playing “nice” with Harper. Plain and simple.
As for going to an Ivy League university, did it occur to anyone here that it is an economic decision on his part? He’s going where he can make the most doing something he has done for a long time, and done very well at.
While Ignatieff’s political instincts may have been questionable, his intellect is far, far more developed than Harper and his gang of bandits put together.
Looking at it another way: If you sat on your hands because you didn’t like Ignatieff, then you handed 2011 to Harper every bit as much as Harper tried to steal the election with voter suppression tactics.
That is a very prestigious post. Congratulations to him on the success.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch, the PM of Canada is a fishing buddy with the admitted crackhead Mayor of Toronto.
While others continue to howl over Ignatieff’s audacity entering federal politics in Canada & his newest outrageous fortune with the latest Harvard appointment. Good grief.
Stupid is as stupid does.
I can’t believe how mean spirited some people are. The level of judgement and poison being spewed is shocking to me. I was never a supporter, but really, the snideness is just beyond tolerable. What did Mr. Ignatieff ever do to you?
Congratulations to Mr. Ignatieff on his new position. He’s probably well shed of Canada and it’s angry politicos.
What did he do to me? Well, he decided his leading the Libs was more important than anything else, which caused him to re-fight the leadership race he lost to Dion and help weaken Dion and the Lib brand further which in turn allowed Harper to stay in power in the next minority. Then once he finally became leader of the Libs he ran one of the worst campaigns against a leader he should have known would smear him after watching what Harperco did to Dion. Worse, he was so bad he weakened what was left of the Lib brand so much that Harper got a majority. So that is what he did to me, and I suspect when you get down to it that is why so many others have such anger towards him. Then, after promising to be staying around regardless of whether he won or not he doesn’t even last the first term after his defeat as leader? You don’t understand why that might trigger some ire and anger? Really?
As for angry politicos, have you even looked at the state of American federal politics for the past three decades?!? Where do you think Harper learned his style from? Mr Ignatief may be a wonderful person on a political level, worthy of respect as an academic even, but as far as he goes as a political figure he was one of the greater disasters Canadian federal politics has seen in the modern age. Things like that tend to stir up ire, especially when you waltz in like he did and the once he was out did what his critics all said he would even after he swore he wouldn’t.
Hi Scotian,
I’m as upset as you are re: Harper and the damage happening in Ottawa. I just can’t be bothered to wind myself up over Ignatieff. He did what he did….probably plenty of humiliation in the loss.
Let’s hope our energy can be better spent on ousting the CPC in 2015.
Thanks very much for your post, it really did help me understand your feelings on the matter.
Cynthia Harbour:
I just spent an hour writing a very long and detailed post explaining how you cannot possibly be as upset as I and why in great detail, but then I realized, what is the point? I know you cannot be, few people can, but to explain why and turn it into some sort of measuring contest serves no point. I will simply say this about that, you need to be careful about how you claim to know or share the feelings of another you do not know, because sometimes that well meant sentiment can be like pouring salt in a wound, or a contemptuous slap in the face even though it is not meant as such.
As for fighting the CPC in the next election, I’ve been fighting them in every one, not going to stop now. However, I have more than enough in me to share some for someone who did as much damage as Ignatief to this country while I wait for that election cycle to begin. His actions are a significant cause of the horror that we have today in Ottawa, I am not sure Harper could have made that majority were it not for Ignatief, he was a leader who literally drove long time Liberal voters away in droves and how clearly never resonated in the wider public or even within his party outside of his dedicated fan club. So I hold all those I see as having played a significant role in the rise and maintaining of Harper in the PMO as worthy of my attention,especially when they come back to my attention proving they were as bad as I thought, which Ignatief just did.
I am glad I was able to answer your question about what he did that caused me and I am certain so many others to feel a personal wound from him. It was not merely his horrible leadership once he became Lib leader, it was all the elements that led him to that office and the incredible damage that crap caused for his party and because of it for the wider country. I am not a Lib, I don’t do the party/leader right or wrong thing, never have and never will. I do though try to stay informed in what happens in all the major federal parties so as to be as informed a voter as I can be, as I see my civic duty being not just to vote but to do so in an informed manner, and when an issue comes up I believe in strongly enough to get involved beyond merely voting.
I also make it a point to work every election day driving voters to campaigns and then acting as a ballot scrutinizer for whichever candidate/party that election I choose to support, because I believe strongly in the importance of maintaining the process and the legitimacy of it, and that is also one of the reasons why I have such searing rage where Harper is concerned, because I am a process geek and it matters to me a great deal. I in many respects care more about the fundamental machinery which drives our system than who runs it politically speaking (which is not to say I don’t care at all, of course I do, just that for me the process itself is even more important than the flavour of the driver/master of the day, well until the rise of Harper that is). That is why Harper was such a unique rage generator for me, and why Ignatief by enabling him so much earns a little slice of it even to this day, and mark my words, what you saw towards him from me truly is but a tiny slice of what I have for Harper.
Given Ignatief’s own academic background he should have understood so much of this too, but either he didn’t bother/care enough to think about it, or he let his own lust for power blind him. Either way though he has richly earned far more than anything every critic of his here at this site have dished out IMHO. When you place your own ego and gratification that far ahead of the good of a nation, well in my books you deserve all the contempt you get, and when you swear something you should hold to it. If he had waited even until Harper was driven from office before returning to the USA/Harvard, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a slap in the face to Canadians (and I wonder how much worse it is for those who actually believed in him, something I never did), but he didn’t.
Indeed, one could point to the fact he fails to understand this as yet another piece of evidence that he was unfit and unsuited to play at this level of federal Canadian politics, because you really have to be incredibly ignorant about how the basics of politics works at this level to not understand just how offensive this move is. If anything he showed yet again why he was so wrong for Canada (still better than Harper, but no PM would be better than a destroyer of his nature).
At least Trudeau is not Ignatief, because he is what I see as the best chance to remove Harper, and clearly so does Harper and the CPC given the way they spend much more time worrying about him and the third place Libs than they do about Mulcair and the Official Opposition NDP. Mulcair and the NDP also appear to see it that way given the amount of time they spend on him too. It would also seem the public tends to agree going by the polling pattern since Trudeau first became Lib leader. He may be young, he may not be the most experienced leader out there, but he connects well, feels real to most people (as in other than the political chattering class) whether they support him or not, and appears to know how to put together a strong team as demonstrated by his 80% leadership race first vote/ballot win (that does not happen on name recognition alone), and by the overall leadership he has shown so far in carefully yet consistently defining what the Liberal brand stands for, which given how both his opponents have claimed it stands for nothing in the past several elections aside from corruption is not only important but essential.
He is also doing a good job of rebuilding his party finances AND the fundraising mechanisms, and from this outsider perspective he looks like he is also doing a good job of rebuilding the riding machinery of his party, of which there is a lot of resources to harness so long as you can inspire them to come back after this last decade, which Trudeau does seem to be managing. It also shows just how bad Ignatief was as a leader that someone as young as Trudeau can demonstrate far better leadership in action as the third party leader than Ignatief could as LOO, as these are tasks Ignatief needed to have been doing and didn’t as leader. Personally, I am finding Trudeaus ability as a leader more than a little surprising and the first sign of real hope I have seen in a decade.
I also see him as the sole agent for hope and optimism in this cycle, with Layton gone the NDP have lost that card, Mulcair has competence on his side, but charm and warmth and hope…not so much. The more one looks at Trudeau, the more Ignatief suffers by contrast as a leader, and given how accomplished an academic leader he was in his life prior to entering politics shows that just because you are good at one aspect of life or kind of leadership does not mean you will be fit for another, and just because you are young and inexperienced in the leadership position does not automatically make you unfit to lead either in the case of Trudeau. In of so many ways does all this show just how horrible Ignatief truly was on all fronts from the outset, and those that thought he was the saviour really deserve to wear it as much as Ignatief himself in my books, that was one of the truly great political blunders of a lifetime.
You’re right, Scotian, it was presumptuous of me to suggest that I am as upset as you are. Again, thank you for your thoughtful analysis. I’m sure you know that you are not alone in hoping (and working) towards change in 2015.
Sorry if I upset and/or offended.
Cynthia Harbour:
Thanks. I know I am far from alone these days, it just saddens me that it took this long for enough Canadians to finally start realizing that what Harper was/is is something alien to our political culture, and the damage he is out to do is deep, fundamental, and in far too many places unrecoverable from. I do appreciate your evaluations of my rather lengthy tomes, I know I am something of an atypical person for the internet world, a long winded writer, so it is nice when I find out someone actually does read them from time to time. I am sort of old school in that I believe in laying out my reasons for my views as well as what they are and what I base them on, a style of writing/speaking that does not seem to fit well in the modern twitterverse world. While I appreciate pithy and concise, I myself rather suck at it, so I stick to what I am good at.
While you did upset a little, I got the feeling after reflecting (which was why I deleted my first response and came back with what I did) that you hadn’t meant to offend, so I thought I’d instead point out that saying something like that to someone you haven’t gotten a sense of first can with the best of intentions backfire. I thank you for coming back with reasoned calm responses and actually not just asking a question but actually replying to it when answered, I don’t see that so much these days, and I appreciate it. Thank you.