Laurence Miall

Maclean’s has a long article called “What Happened, Michael?” wondering what happened to poor old Michael Ignatieff, once supposedly the Liberals’ saviour, now supposedly dragging the Liberals down in the polls to exactly the same level as Dion did a year ago. I think the question in the article’s title is a silly one. It presupposes that Michael Ignatieff once had a good thing going, which I think is an assumption more than an accurate assertion of fact.

Ignatieff has built a reputation as being intelligent. The problem with his kind of intelligence is that it gets all the simple things wrong. Perhaps it is tiresome to hark on about the past, but I think that Ignatieff will never live down his support for the Iraq war. It was a monumental blunder. He built a rather abstract argument for intervention along humanitarian lines, but in fact, when it came to the moral case for war, the truth was every bit as simple as placard wavers at protests worldwide always asserted. George W Bush and his cronies were right-wing thugs who were bound to fuck up the invasion. It was about oil and greed. The wellbeing of Iraqis was never their concern.

Another simple truth: being out of a country most of your life stands you in very poor stead to lead it. I despise the Tories’ negative campaigning and the lowest-common-denominator cesspit they inhabit with their “Just Visiting” ads, but they have a point. Ignatieff pretty much proves it every time he opens his mouth to say something “patriotic” or insightful about Canada. “The great thing about politics is you get to see the country raw and unplugged,” says Ignatieff to the Maclean’s reporter. “You get to see things that most other Canadians don’t see.”

Really? Some might argue that politics is exactly the wrong vantage point from which to suddenly understand a country “raw and unplugged.”  You need to develop an understanding of the country before you enter politics, because once you’re a politician, raw and unplugged is exactly what most people won’t be – at least when your artificially smiling face comes anywhere near. And don’t you just love the “You get to see things that most other Canadians don’t see” put-down of every Canadian that doesn’t get to jet-set around the world’s second biggest country like he does?

Only someone extraordinarily out-of-touch with “raw and unplugged” Canadians would have suggested, as Ignatieff did a month ago, that we were all desperate for his coronation.

I saw Ignatieff speaking in Montreal earlier this year. He gushed vacuously about having visited Pratt and Whitney earlier that day, about how he had seen some amazing technical gizmo and how awesome it was to see such ingenuity and invention here in good ol’ Canada.  It’s exactly the let’s-all-pat-ourselves-on-the-back thing that is one of the most nauseating things about Canada, and indeed, some elements of its Natural Governing Party. If this is indeed a great country, it’s not because we invent amazing gizmos. Ranking countries on their ability to make gizmos would mean the United States kicks the crap out of our little country every time. They invented the Internet for crying out loud! The last thing this country needs as it lurches ever further into a decentralized mess of selfish provincial fiefdoms with decaying infrastructures and environmental ruination of increasing magnitude — the last thing we need is an aspiring leader who thinks that, by definition, Canadian = good. “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” said Samuel Johnson, and begad, he was right. Political speech-making is not the same as making an advert for Molson Canadian. I’m not advocating Ignatieff runs on a Canada-sucks platform, but — oh, wait a minute — the Liberals just threatened to throw this country into an election and they don’t even have a platform!

This is the party website of the Liberal Party of Canada. If you can find out what platform the party is running on in the next election, well, you’ve a keener eye than me. I’ve spent 30 minutes trying to find anything beyond a list of books by Ignatieff, photos, and of course party resolutions, which typically don’t get listened to by a party in power anyway.

No doubt about it, the Conservative government of Harper has to go, but if Ignatieff were our PM, I have no idea about how he’d differ from the current occupant of 10 Sussex Drive. Now Stephane Dion — there’s a leader who clearly would have taken this country in an entirely different direction, but Ignatieff? He is a mere two inches to the left of Harper, which says something, because Harper is about the most sinister, pro-oil, pro-war, pro-corporate, anti-worker PM in modern history.

Where are the Liberals on the environment since killing Dion’s Green Shift?

Where are they on the rapacious activity of the financial sector?

Where are they on the need to massively overhaul Canada’s infrastructure and prepare for a post-fossil fuel future?

Do they even oppose the Alberta tar sands, as any ethical leader in this day and age should? I get the clear impression that Ignatieff actually likes the tar sands.

Where are they on the ludicrously unfair and unhelpful system of student loans in this country?

Where are they on the ever-growing number of homeless?

The fact that Ignatieff hasn’t used his 10 months at the helm to paint even some rudimentary policy brushstrokes for the Liberal Party is underwhelming at best. Along with the worst-timed sabre-rattle since Sammy the Sabre Rattler cut off his own arm,  Ignatieff is emerging as Canada’s leading Man Without a Clue.