michael ignatieff Archives - Page 2 of 40

Peek-a-boo politics

The Liberals are complaining that Julian Fantino, the Conservative by-election candidate for Vaughan is playing “Peek-a-boo politics” by skipping all-candidates debate. For Liberals, they hope, this plays into a bit of a weak narrative of a secretive and scripted government that doesn’t want to engage “real Canadians”.

“This type of ‘peek-a-boo’ politics is straight out of the Harper playbook where scripted, invite-only photo-ops keep candidates safely out of reach of real people with real questions.”

All-candidates debates, while they sound great in principle, have very little value to the candidates themselves, especially if they represent mainline parties. If you’ve ever been to one of these events you know that each candidate brings their staff and volunteers and cheers and jeers and “engagement” with the “voting public” comes in the form of planted question after planted question. All-candidates debates sound good on paper, but in practice they’ve become farcical. All-candidates debates are more accurately described as “all-decided”.

In fact, when we used to train campaign managers (of all stripes) at the Manning Centre, we advised that all-candidates debates should actually be avoided if possible. Why? Because more accessible (leaning or undecided) voters are met at the door or on the telephone. A candidate’s time is much better invested knocking on doors or by doing telephone canvassing. All-candidates debates turn into a competition for fevered applause versus exaggerated boos for all candidates. The media is disappointed when a candidate is a no-show, of course, because these “debates” are a lazier opportunity for “getting the pulse” of the “electorate”. In fact, we used to advise candidates show to as few as possible in order to check the box for the media.

The Liberals should also be careful with the “Peek-a-boo” label as they’ve been guilty of their own charge in the past,

From a Globe and Mail report during the Liberal leadership race of 2008,

The weekend brouhaha at a meeting of Liberals from Ontario made it clear that Mr. Ignatieff is viewed as the leading contender, and that Mr. Rae’s first goal is to ensure his opponent does not quietly coast through the race.

On Sunday, Mr. Rae boycotted a leadership “forum” where candidates were to take questions from riding presidents and other party officials, after Mr. Ignatieff refused calls from his two rivals to open the session to reporters and cameras.

Mr. Rae accused Mr. Ignatieff of preparing a “peekaboo” campaign.

“There is a fray: It’s called a leadership race. And you can’t very well stay above it. If you want to stay above it, you’re not going to be in it,” Mr. Rae said outside the meeting at a Mississauga hotel.

“The Liberal Party is a political party. It’s not a private club.”

Prince William and Kate Middleton announce engagement: Canadian reaction

The Prime Minister’s Office put out a press release on the happy news today,

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued the following statement on the engagement of His Royal Highness Prince William and Miss Kate Middleton:

“On behalf of all Canadians, I wish to congratulate His Royal Highness Prince William, the grandson of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, on his engagement to Miss Kate Middleton.

“It would be an honour to welcome Prince William and his bride to Canada in the future and show them the special warmth and cherished traditions that are reserved for members of the Royal family.

“Once again, warm wishes on behalf of all Canadians on this special day.”

Michael Ignatieff responded to the news today when asked,

“They’re such a nice young couple, they look great, they look happy,” Ignatieff said. “Reminds me of when I got engaged. It’s nice.”

However, his views on the broader institution of the monarchy was the subject of a previous op-ed. He wrote about his wish to see the monarchy fade out,

This schizophrenia perfectly expresses the conflict between republican and monarchical principles at the heart of the constitution.

What happens now depends not on what the palace wishes, but on what the public comes to believe is right. My fervent wish is that it will regretfully but firmly decide enough is enough.

When asked about his leader-of-her-majesty’s-loyal-opposition stance, he quipped “Right now, Canadians are worried about lines for flu shots, not lines of succession.”

The NDP has not issued a statement but the NDP’s Pat Martin had the following to say (caution, it’s the Winnipeg Free Press):

“I’m more interested in the Osborne family than the royal family,” Martin quipped.

He followed it up by saying that he actually thinks Canada should ditch the monarchy long before William gets near the throne.

When the current Queen dies, it will be “time for Canada to grow up,” Martin said.

He quickly added he wasn’t sure whether that was the position of the NDP or just himself.

But deputy leader Thomas Mulcair, sitting at Martin’s side, said he agreed.

The NDP has previously shown hostility towards the idea of the Canadian Royal Family and the Queen as Canada’s head of state. At a previous policy conference in 2006, the NDP was to debate the following policy resolution,

WHEREAS under the actual Constitution, Canada is a monarchy whose Chief of State is Queen Elizabeth II; and

WHEREAS under the actual Constitution Queen Elizabeth II is the Chief of the Canadian Executive and the Commander in Chief of the Canadian Armies; and

WHEREAS under the actual Constitution, the Governor General is the representative of Queen Elizabeth II in Canada; and

WHEREAS Queen Elizabeth II was not born nor has ever lived in Canada; and

WHEREAS in fact, the actual democratically elected Chief of state, Canadian citizen and residing in Canada, is the Prime Minister of Canada; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the NDP conduct an active campaign so that Canada becomes a Republic; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NDP conduct an active campaign to redefine the role of the Executive within the Canadian Constitution.

Yet, Jack Layton himself seems to be monarchy-positive,

Well, I think the idea of having a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic has worked pretty well for Canada. I do believe that Canadians struggle, as the years go by, with the issue of relevancy.

On the other hand I think we’ve had Governor-Generals and certainly our current Governor-General would be a good example, of someone representing the Crown- I don’t mean an individual but the phenomenon, the concept of our collective statehood- in kind of an interesting way.

I don’t hear from Canadians the sound of a stampede to make a change. It comes up from time to time. I feel that we’ve got precious amount of debate time and work time in parliament and there are a lot of issues that come before reform to the constitutional monarchy.

I won’t even ponder the Bloc’s position on this. Have Canada’s opposition parties largely shrugged off the Royal Family? Does their indifference reflect Canadian sentiment about our Queen and her heirs? Why have they given such a clear path to Conservatives to speak on behalf of this country’s tradition and identity?

Liberals are still obsessed about the old game

The Winnipeg Free Press published this piece on their website today,

(see update below…)

The Liberal leader was in Winnipeg on the weekend campaigning for Winnipeg North candidate Kevin Lamoureux when he accused the Conservatives of fighting dirty by running a Filipino candidate in the riding.

Voters, he said, deserved “a straight-up fight” and not “a bunch of games.” He was apparently referring to speculation that the Tories were trying to weaken Mr. Lamoureux’s support by running Filipino Julie Javier in a riding that traditionally supports the New Democratic Party and which has a high number of Filipino residents.

Once again, does anyone know what Mr. Ignatieff is talking about? Is he really suggesting that the Conservatives should have fielded a non-Filipino candidate to make it a fair fight for the Liberal contender? Is it his view that Ms. Javier is a fake candidate who has cynically offered her name to spoil Liberal ambitions and ensure an NDP victory?

Mr. Ignatieff’s comments were an insult to voters in general and Filipinos in particular. To be fair, it doesn’t look like he anticipated the question, but the leader of an institution like the Liberal Party of Canada should be smarter on his feet. In the big leagues, you’re only allowed so many stupid mistakes.

Let’s play the Liberal game for a moment and check some of the boxes of identity politics…

A Conservative Prime Minister stopped blocking the right of women to vote in 1919. Conservatives had the female cabinet minister in 1957.

Lincoln Alexander was the first black MP in 1968, he was a Conservative. He was also the first black cabinet minister and served in a Conservative cabinet.

Other Canadian firsts achieved by Conservatives? Conservatives elected the first Chinese Canadian MP, first Japanese Canadian MP, first Muslim Canadian MP, and the first Hindu Canadian MP.

The best part? This “game” is less and less relevant in this day in age. Canadians elect members that represent them, but perhaps not in the way that Liberals have yet realized.

Julie Javier, the Conservatives hope, will be representative of Winnipeg North. Not by her identity as per the Liberal “game”; if she is ultimately successful she will more importantly represent the values of the voters of Winnipeg North.

While Conservatives can go toe-to-toe with the Liberals whenever they bring out the identity politics playbook, Conservatives win on what really matters in this day and age: the values a candidate brings to the forum.

If you need any more proof of this, look to Jason Kenney’s work over the past number of years. And his critic in Liberal caucus? A fellow whose father defined many rules of the old game, Justin Trudeau.

UPDATE: The Winnipeg Free Press misses the mark, big time. Here’s the transcript of the actual exchange between the press and Ignatieff,

Media question: The race in Winnipeg North, there’s been some speculation that the Tories are running Julie Javier… because might siphon off Kevin Lamoureux’s strong Filipino vote allowing the NDP to win, what do you think of that speculation?

Michael Ignatieff: Let’s not insult the voters of Winnipeg North, let’s give them a real choice – the right choice is Kevin Lamoureux. Let’s have a straight-up fight. Let’s not have any political games here. Let’s give the voters of Winnipeg North a clear choice. Kevin Lamoureux has 20 years of public experience… Kevin Lamoureux is the kind of guy who goes down to McDonald’s and holds clinics to help citizens with their problems and he’s doing it for 20 years. He’s the kind of guy Winnipeg North needs in the House of Commons and everything else is a bunch of games and we’re not here to play games, we’re here to win.

Ignatieff talks a good talk about getting away from identity politics, asks for a fight on quality of the candidates and suggests that the press is trying to frame the fight inappropriately. This is a good sign. As for the Winnipeg Free Press? Terrible. Opinion of an exchange is healthy, but do make sure that it has foundation in fact.

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