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Here’s some recent political history that’s relevant to the mess the federal Liberal party finds itself in today. In 1985, the Ontario Conservatives were in much the same boat as the Liberals are now, except their fall from grace was much faster. Like the Liberals federally until the 2006 election, the provincial Conservatives in 1985 saw themselves as the natural governing party of Ontario. But their 42-year political dynasty suddenly collapsed in that year’s vote, when the Conservatives under Frank Miller, who had just replaced Bill Davis as leader, finished barely ahead of David Peterson’s Liberals, 52 seats to 48....

Here's Michael Ignatieff's big speech to the Toronto Board of Trade, in which he was expected to lay out the Liberal position on the economy. If you can find a platform in here you have greater forensic abilities than I do. Other than an apparent plan to revive the Foreign Investment Review Agency, a Trudeau-era federal agency that was set up in 1974 and allowed to die an unlamented death a decade later, there is a notable lack of specifics. Here's the few I could spot: • "Upon taking office, we’ll conduct a full audit of our public finances. We’ll...

The Liberals have finally acknowledged what has been self-evident for some time: This is not the time for an election, and constantly threatening one isn't a good idea. The admission, curiously enough, comes not from Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal leader, but from Sen David Smith, the campaign co-chairman. “We’re not having an election on EI,” Smith said Thursday, as reported by Canadian Press. “I don’t hear Canadians clamouring for an election on this issue.” He added: “I don’t think there’s a presumption that every time there’s an opportunity to have an election that you have to do it. We still...

Late last month, near the end of a prolonged period of uncertainty in Canadian politics, the Conservative government of prime minister Stephen Harper tabled its 2009 budget, the long-awaited response to the Liberal-New Democrat coalition that had been formed late last year, a last-ditch effort by the government to remain in power. The question, though, was not so much whether the budget's economic stimulus package was good enough but, politically speaking, how the Liberals – and specifically new leader Michael Ignatieff – would respond to it. Now with the power in their hands, would they seek to bring down...

During the recent parliamentary crisis, a Liberal MP's constituent proposed the governor-general appoint "a fellow aristocrat, His Highness Count Ignatieff" to form an alternative government. It was tongue-in-cheek advice. But, as in all good humour, it contained kernels of truth. If it weren't for nearly a century of history since the Bolshevik Revolution, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff would be a count today; perhaps living on the grand estate bequeathed to his ancestors by Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias. That's a big if, of course. In fact, the Mestchersky country palace, where his grandmother Natasha was born a...

Recently I reported on a speech by Michael Ignatieff under the title Ignatieff in the lion’s den and also posted Ignatieff’s non-apology by my friend Rochelle Wilner. Ignatieff had come to the Jewish community to apologize for accusing Israel of war crimes. Unfortunate he kept stressing the need for Israel to abide by international human rights law and the Geneva Convention. Irwin Cotler was in the room. I wrote to Irwin subsequently to plead with him to make Israel's case vis a vis international law. Whether he was responding to me or not, a week or so later, he delivered...

In the last couple of months, Barack Obama has gone before the American public to explain himself or perhaps to apologize for remarks made. He wasn't terribly successful. Similarly, Michael Ignatieff, Member of Parliament for Etobicoke Lakeshore, Deputy Leader Liberal Party of Canada, delivered an address at Holy Blossom Synagogue, Toronto last night with the intention of doing likewise. He also wasn't successful. When Ignatieff was running for the leadership of the Liberal Party hoping to be Canada's next Prime Minister, he lost the nomination in part because he blamed Israel for war crimes just after the Qana event. He...

Is Iggy behind goofy Liberal strategy? By ANGELO PERSICHILLI Toronto Sun Sunday, February 18, 2007 "Cui prodest?" (Who gains?) was the question the ancient Latins were asking themselves when trying to figure out the explanation of certain actions. I asked myself that question last Wednesday during the vote on the Liberal motion asking the government to implement the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. The obvious answer is "the environment," meaning all of us, as long as it is possible to implement Kyoto within the required time frame. At this point the debate becomes foggy and, at the same time,...

Commentary: The man who would be PM hammers Bush LAWRENCE MARTIN Toronto Globe and Mail Thursday, October 19, 2006 Michael Ignatieff wants to make one thing clear: He's not Washington's guy. “People seem to believe I want to live in an American imperial world. I do not. I do not.” The front-runner in the Liberal leadership race was hunched over lunch at an Ottawa restaurant, focused, eyes like a hawk. He wants the prize so badly. He's criticized as being Harper-lite or Bush-lite or both. It bothers him. On George W. Bush, he was pointed. “This president has been...

Michael Ignatieff, the former Harvard human rights professor and current candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, has made two serious misstatements regarding the recent war between Hezbollah and Israel, and most particularly the Israeli military actions in the Lebanese town of Qana. Back in August, Ignatieff said that he was "not losing sleep" over the attack in which 29 civilians, who had sought refuge in a building, were killed when the Israeli air force fired a missile at what it believed was a Hezbollah rocket-launching site. Every humane person -- and Ignatieff is surely that --...

OTTAWA (CP) - Another controversial comment by Liberal leadership front-runner Michael Ignatieff has cost him the support of his Toronto campaign co-chair. Thornhill MP Susan Kadis withdrew her support for Ignatieff on Wednesday, after he accused Israel of committing a "war crime" during its bombardment of Lebanon last summer. "Michael is an intelligent person and I would think that he would have a better handle on the Middle East given his years of experience on human rights and international law," Kadis said in a written statement. Kadis was reacting to Ignatieff's appearance on a French-language television program Sunday, in which...

Pandering to Israel's enemies National Post: EDITORIAL Thursday, October 12, 2006 A few months after the 9/11 attacks, Jacques Chirac, the French President, was asked by a reporter why French foreign policy tended to tilt in favour of Arab states. After all, France had once been Israel's staunchest ally and principal supplier of arms. His uncharacteristically candid response was that France was home to 6 million Muslims, but only 1 million Jews. He urged his questioner to do the math. We suspect similarly crass considerations explain why Michael Ignatieff, the leading candidate for the Liberal party leadership, has accused...

Israel's attack on Qana a 'war crime'Ignatieff: Remarks made on Quebec television Graeme Hamilton National Post Wednesday, October 11, 2006 MONTREAL - Michael Ignatieff, the front-runner in the race for the federal Liberal leadership, has accused Israel of committing "a war crime" during its conflict with Hezbollah last summer. In an interview on a widely watched Quebec talk show, Mr. Ignatieff apologized for comments in August when he told a newspaper he was "not losing sleep" over an Israeli bombing that killed dozens of civilians in the Lebanese village of Qana. "It was a mistake. I showed a lack...

Liberals won't win with Harper-lite leader Ignatieff closer to Bush and the PM than most Canadians, says Haroon Siddiqui Oct. 8, 2006. 01:00 AM HAROON SIDDIQUI -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the main tasks for the next Liberal party leader seems clear enough: To help end the alienation that a majority of Canadians feel from their own government on the most central issue of the age — George W. Bush's failed war on terror. After begging off the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Canadians have also turned sour on the mission in Afghanistan. Fifty-nine per cent believe "we cannot win" there, a...

OTTAWA -- After narrowly winning the vote to prolong the risky Afghanistan mission, a triumphant Stephen Harper crossed the floor of the Commons and threaded his way to the back of the Liberal benches to shake hands with Michael Ignatieff. The prime minister's gesture may well turn out to be the political equivalent of the kiss of death for Ignatieff's bid to lead the Liberal party. Ostensibly, Harper was simply thanking the rookie Toronto MP and acclaimed scholar for being one of only 24 Liberals to support the Conservative government's motion to extend the Afghanistan military deployment for two years....

It's like a classical pianist at the burlesque Intellectual colossus Michael Ignatieff downsizes himself to Liberal talking points MARK STEYN "We need troops, warriors and chieftains," Michael Ignatieff, parliamentary candidate for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, told a Liberal fundraiser the other day. Don't worry, he doesn't mean real troops, with guns and uniforms and so forth, like Scary Stephen wants to introduce to our cities, according to one of the wackier Grit attack ads. Professor Ignatieff was speaking metaphorically, as Liberals usually turn out to be when they get a whiff of cordite in their rhetoric. He only wants metaphorical troops on the...

In a last-minute blow to high-profile Liberal candidate Michael Ignatieff, the president of the party’s riding association in Etobicoke-Lakeshore swung his support today to Conservative rival John Capobianco in Monday’s federal election. The controversial process by which Ignatieff was acclaimed the candidate over local hopefuls ruled ineligible by the party was a major factor in the decision, said Ron Chyczij, who had hoped to contest the nomination himself. "I can no longer in good conscience support the Liberal candidate in this riding," he said in a statement released this afternoon. "After the nomination fiasco, I’ve purposely waited on the sidelines...

Anti-American sentiments are so robust in Canada that you apparently don't even have to be American to feel their sting — American-by-association will do. Take the case of Michael Ignatieff, the Toronto-born political scientist and human rights expert who spent the last couple of decades teaching at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. When he returned to Canada late last year to run for Parliament, did he get a warm welcome home from the locals? Hardly. Ignatieff had to stand down hecklers shouting "American, American!" — and this was at the candidate nomination meeting for his electoral district,...

Toronto – Barely 18 months ago, Canadian party leaders were out campaigning for better health care policies, a cure for Quebec's nationalist aspirations and an end to government corruption scandals. But since the minority government put in place in June 2004 lost a no-confidence vote late last November, the politicians have been back out on the stump, preparing for a new election on Jan. 23. This time, though, running in the two coldest months of winter, they've been using that familiar demon — the United States and all its evils — as the fuel to heat Canadian voters to a...

On Monday, Nov. 28, the government of Canada “fell” and Michael Ignatieff—the Harvard professor of human-rights policy, intellectual supporter of the war in Iraq and contributor of many thousands of words of copy to The New York Times Magazine—put the Canadians out of their misery. He promised to return home to save them. After months of fretting and speculation, Mr. Ignatieff, 58, officially announced that he is suspending his career as an American academic-media star and moving back to Toronto, his hometown, to become a professional politician. The news came a few days before Canada’s ruling Liberal Party suffered a...