The Ignatieff Enigma

(Published September 23, 2009 in The Laval News)
With the launch of a federal election delayed but still very much a possibility within the near future, it seems that Canadian voters will have a little more time to get to know the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Even in the midst of this year’s heated political climate, quite a few people confided in me that they still have difficulty making up their minds about him.

I first met Michael Ignatieff while studying at Harvard University six years ago, and we have seen each other many times since. I know that he is a careful and nuanced thinker, far from the way he has been depicted by certain independent commentators and, especially, his political opponents.

Some of them have even pushed their criticism to the point of declaring that electing a Liberal government under Ignatieff’s leadership would only replace the present ruling neo-conservative regime with a neo-liberal one. The Bloc’s newly released two-faced posters showing Prime Minister Harper and the Liberal leader side-by-side is a prime example.

This tactic, of course, is similar to what supporters of left-of-centre candidate Ralph Nader falsely claimed about President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election, as well as about Governor Bush and Vice-President Al Gore in 2000.

His Political Views

Mr. Ignatieff was always considered a progressive liberal in Great Britain, the United States and elsewhere in Canada, at least prior to the Iraq war. Is it still the case?

In an in-depth interview in last May’s issue of Policy Options, the Liberal leader revealed the basis of his thinking: “The paradox of Quebec and the rest of Canada is that our political cultures are remarkably similar in their left-of-centre basic orientation, and sustaining this model is the challenge that both of us face.”

He added, during a speech at a major Toronto fundraising dinner on April 1st, 2009: “Will we keep faith with that fundamental belief in fairness which makes our country great? National unity, social compassion, fiscal responsibility, environmental sustainability, leadership on the world stage – principles that make us the progressive centre of Canadian politics.”

The Environment

He also commented on greenhouse gas emissions during that same dinner, stating that we need “a Canadian cap-and-trade system with hard caps that attacks climate change instead of passing the buck. An energy strategy that unites Canadians in every region around two goals: to make us the most efficient users of energy in the world, and the most sustainable.”

He asked the audience, “Will we harness the power of our rivers, tides, winds and fuels—and the powerful ingenuity of our people—to become the earth’s green energy superpower?”

This preoccupation with Canadian unity comes back regularly in his speeches. At a gathering of BC Young Liberals in Vancouver on January 14, 2009, he commented on the oil sands, stating “The challenge is it’s dirty and we’ve got to clean it up… Energy policy in our country is a national unity issue,” he said. “The dumbest thing you can do – and no Liberal must ever do it – is run against Alberta, make Alberta the enemy, isolate Alberta.”

In fact, the unity of the country is one of the two main reasons why Ignatieff dropped the Liberal-NDP coalition, supported by the Bloc, last winter, given the significant East-West and left-right splits even the thought of a coalition was provoking across the country. The other reason obviously was the financial and economic crisis in full flight at the time.

Just think about it. They were offering Michael Ignatieff not only the leadership of the Liberal Party on a silver platter, but also the keys to 24 Sussex and he declined. While some observers concluded that he was leaning towards the right when he supported the new Conservative government budget, others saw a leader with a true sense of statesmanship. 

Today, should the Liberals form a minority government, he remains open to the idea of gathering the support of social-democratic parties in the House of Commons, however without any formal coalition as in the past.

Iraq and Afghanistan

It is surely Ignatieff’s initial support for the military interventions in Iraq (since regretted) and Afghanistan that have contributed most to his false labelling as a right-winger. In fact, it was on the basis of concepts advanced by a large segment of the centre-left that Ignatieff and others originally supported these interventions: the right to intervene and the responsibility to protect endangered populations – in this case Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, Afghan women, and the potential victims of presumed weapons of mass destruction.

These motives have nothing to do with the imperialist objectives aimed at oil reserves and other economic and geopolitical interests in the regions that have been attributed to President Bush’s camp and his allies. Furthermore, the erroneous and manipulated implementation of those principles, with their tragic consequences, makes it improbable that history will repeat itself, at least not for a while.

Leadership

Too often, unfortunately, we do not have access to all of Mr. Ignatieff’s thinking on a given subject.  This is due to a number of factors, including the partial quotes carefully edited and selected by his opponents, the eight-second video clips in the mainstream news, and to his own occasional incomplete statements, which can create some confusion, especially when dealing with delicate subject matter.

Ignatieff`s approach, however, closely follows the practice of leadership as it is taught at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a professor for five years.  Emphasizing empathy, comprehension, shared vision, timing, sequencing, interventionism, mobilization, results analysis and tactical adjustments, this method has been proven to successfully overcome the most serious adaptive challenges that our societies must confront.

I hope that these few lines, however personal, will help lift the enigma surrounding the person who could become the next prime minister of Canada as early as this fall.

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Robert M. David teaches at the University of Ottawa and Concordia University.