Even When They're Down, They Still Think They're On Top
I managed to catch a good portion of the Liberals announcing their next Leadership Convention. Now, I realize that it's the duty of the Party President to rally the troops and all of that, but to boldly state that in December they'll be choosing the next Prime Minister of Canada is more than a little presumptuous and reflects the long-running view of the Liberals as being an arrogant party, divine right to rule, all that stuff. Now, yes, it is true that in the history of Canada there have only ever been two leaders of the party who did not become the PM, but at this time, when they're desperately searching for something to stand for and establish themselves as a party with some beliefs, to proclaim that they're doing anything more than choosing the next Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is inappropriate. Stephen Harper is the current Prime Minister of Canada, he hasn't even had a single day in the House of Commons in this role, and to hear that the Liberals are already talking about his successor, before they've identified a party platform and outlined their vision for taking Canada forward, is troubling.
In my opinion, unless the next leader of the Liberal Party ends up being Michael Ignatieff, Paul Martin's heir will not be the next Prime Minister of Canada. Two of the speculative "front-runners" are Tory turncoats, one is a former NDP premier who would have no shot in the West, and the rest are relatively unknown. Ignatieff has his own shortcomings, the big knock that I hear about him is that he's not a "real Canadian" because he's been living in the States or England for most of the past 30 years. Guess who else spent a lot of time being a global citizen before coming out of nowhere to capture the Liberal leadership? Pierre Trudeau. Yeah, that Pierre Trudeau. That kind of undermines that argument eh? There will be many who bristle at Ignatieff's support for the Iraq war and his stance on the global Campaign against Terrorism, but there will surely be an equal number of red tories who like what they see. In all honesty, I'd rather have the latter on my side than the types who would seek to undermine the credibility of the Canadian Forces and the work that is being done in places like Afghanistan to protect our security over there so that we don't get attacked here.
I'd like to talk about this in greater detail, but I'm hungry for food and have other work to do. Perhaps at some point in the near future I'll do a longer talk about "Ignatieff for Liberal Leader."
5 comments:
Only one Liberal Leader ever was not Prime Minister. It is fair to say the next liberal leader will sit as PM one day.
Amazing, and they think they are truely the only Canadian party. Some dude said it at the meeting!
I did not hear the usual liberal buzz words "fundemental", "Clearly", or
"Canadian values" They will probably rear their heads in the next 3 months!
@Manley Man: Yes it may be fair to say that the next Liberal leader may one day become the PM, but when the party has been successfully portrayed by its opponents as being arrogant, to make suggestions like the one above at this time demonstrates that the arrogance still persists. I do have my doubts that the next LL will have the opportunity; if Harper makes good on his Big Five, sticks around a while and is able to ride off into the sunset he could even end up with a successor (a la Chretien-Martin) ready to take over the reins.
It's all idle speculation at this point, but in my opinion the best thing for them to do is simply stick to things that are unquestionably true.
@Albert A: Those were the usual Paul Martin buzzwords, and though Canadian values may appear again, I think we're past the clear fundamentals for a short while.
Rich,
I myself have sometimes supported Ignatieff but I don't feel his is leadership material just yet. Your comment about Trudeau was accurate..yeah he was a traveller.. but he certainly hadn't been out of the country for thirty years... AND prior to winning the leadership race he had been Minister of Justice... just a LITTTTTLE more experience than ol Iggy has hahah
What do you think of Stephane Dion anyway? Did you see him support the mission in Afghanistan yesterday on CTV's Qp?
I think very highly of Stephane Dion. He is the politician who is responsible for me taking an interest in politics in the first place. Waaaaay back in something like Grade 11, for our Social Studies class we had to write a letter to someone in government on an issue of some importance to us. As a young kid who was still worried about the prospect of the country breaking up because of Quebec separatism, I wrote a letter to the PM about the subject. Well it got passed along to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, who sent me a personal reply (remember, this is way back before the days of email, and I was like 16 living in a REEEEAAAALLY small town, so this was a huge deal for me) and a huge information package with all the concepts and proposals for future legislation on how to quell Quebec's lust for sovereignty. The Minister at the time? Stephane Dion.
It might have even had some ideas for the still-in-the-conceptual stage Clarity Act, I'll have to go thru all my old boxes one day to see if I still have it.
So yeah, Dion would have my support, not just for the sentimental value, but he's really smart too. It'd be a tough call between him and Ignatieff if it came down to the final ballot.
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