Ignatieff's big problem
By Susan Riley, The Ottawa Citizen
August 28, 2009
One thing Michael Ignatieff needs, if he is ever to succeed, is a quick and savage response team -- twitchy, obsessive partisans with no personal lives, no particular need for sleep and a pathological loathing of Conservatives. (Sort of like, well, you know ...)
Liberals have to be faster and more emphatic in answering Tory jibes about Ignatieff's patriotism, his commitment to his job, his alleged eagerness to raise taxes --quicker at countering those nasty Tory mailouts displaying a question mark where Ignatieff's face should be. In fact, they should be doing the attacking, not the defending: heaven knows, the target is large and tempting.
Instead, the Liberal leader spent much of the fast-disappearing summer making dilatory and mostly ignored visits to anointed communities around the country, "thinking thoughts" at Stornoway, working behind the scenes on fundraising, helping triple party membership and searching out potential candidates.
While this might constitute the only serious infrastructure work going on in Ottawa -- and while the listless Liberal party desperately needs rebuilding -- it shouldn't be the only preoccupation of the leader.
Especially not when Prime Minister Stephen Harper is swanning around, unusually visible, looking self-assured, reasonable and dangerous.
If Ignatieff ever awoke from his professorial langour (or so it appears to casual onlookers), he would have noticed opportunities flying by, even in the sleepy summer season.
He has some renown as a champion of human rights. Why didn't he condemn Hamid Karzai's recent endorsement of an edited version of a law that still treats Afghan women as chattels? Why didn't he draw attention to Harper's sudden low profile on the same issue? And if he did speak out, see above: the need for a quick response team to get the message out.
He has been criticized elsewhere for missing a chance to defend Canadian health care in the face of the raging debate in the United States, for failing to exploit his personal ties with the Obama regime, for remaining mute on the harmonized sales tax -- a federal initiative that Harper is trying to blame on the provinces -- or the outrageous official indifference to Canadian citizens who find themselves in trouble abroad.
Lesser Liberals have squeaked about some of these issues. And no one wants to hear the chorus of complaint about everything which is the opposition leader's sorry duty. What the country needs --those who are fed up with Harper's cramped vision, at least -- is intelligent demolition of Conservative nostrums accompanied by optimistic and generous alternatives.
This is usually described as "policy" -- and the clamour for marketable and distinctive Liberal positions is building and will be heard again next week in Sudbury as Liberals hold their pre-session caucus. This will eventually lead to a glossy booklet which will be released amid much fanfare then forgotten -- unless it contains something truly novel (like a Green Shift), in which case it will be mercilessly eviscerated by rivals.
It isn't "policy" the Liberals need, not in the narrow sense, but a different approach to the country and its problems -- less hostile, hidebound and divisive than Harper's. Bob Rae embodies elements of that more "liberal" approach, so does Manitoba NDP Premier Gary Doer, U.S. President Barack Obama, even, on good days, Quebec Premier Jean Charest. So did Jean Chrétien, notwithstanding his authoritarian streak and animus towards separatists.
But does Michael Ignatieff? He appears culturally (fashionably) liberal and temperamentally conservative -- but, mostly, diffident. Diffidence can be a charming personal trait, but a political liability --especially when your opponent is a human blow torch when aroused, fiercely single-minded, utterly convinced of his own rightness, ruthless in incinerating stumbling rivals.
And no amount of aggressive staff work can cover confusion at the centre. After all these months, Ignatieff remains an enigma -- either undecided on key issues, absent, or a conservative trapped in the wrong party.
He once championed a carbon tax and now extols the tar sands. Like Harper, he supports the seal hunt (or did in Britain). In New Brunswick, recently, he endorsed an expansion of nuclear power, an issue by no means settled among Liberals and anathema to environmentalists. At the same time -- again, without conspicuous consultation -- he ended Liberal support for Quebec's small asbestos industry.
He has also promised restored funding for the CBC, public subsidy for the Digby-Saint John ferry and mused about an east-west power grid -- but much of what he says sounds improvised. Meanwhile, he hasn't bothered to defend his proposal to offer jobless benefits after nine weeks of work -- while Tories merrily portray this as a gift to shirkers.
Ignatieff is unusually self-aware, also observant, ambitious and bright. But if he is going to provoke an election this fall, and have any hope of winning, he needs to improve his game -- not just his staff.
Susan Riley writes on national politics. E-mail: sriley.work@gmail.com
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