The Liberal Leadership Race

As everybody in Canada knows, the Liberals are in the midst of another leadership contest to replace Paul Martin, the greatest footnote in Canadian political history. People are signing up, gadflies are dropping off, and there's a potential intellectual heavyweight showdown for a finale, as any combination of Michael Ignatieff, Stephane Dion, Bob Rae, and Ken Dryden would be insightful and stimulating to the many of us who want to see politics at a higher level. Harper's off to a good start on that already, but having a brilliant opposition leader like any of those four names I just mentioned will really raise the bar. It is regrettable that, yes, the names above are four old white guys and that there aren't, at this stage, any really credible female candidates. I'm sure that Martha Hall Findlay is a very capable and apt politician, but her name is simply not as well known as the four above. I will also add that it is for the best that Belinda Stronach dropped off, as a debate between her and any of the "big four" would demonstrate in plain view her many shortcomings in the qualifications for the leadership.
Full disclosure, just in case of the readers of this blog don't know my history: I am not a member of the Liberal Party. I was once, but I let my membership expire last December for a number of reasons:
1. I simply could not support Paul Martin any longer. It started with the BMD flip-flop and got progressively worse from there.
2. Like it or not, my age means that I officially have to sit at the kids' table. This is something which I have no interest in doing, as I'm fully capable of playing with the grown-ups, and moreover, the YLCs have a number of policies that I disagree with on a very fundamental basis.
3. I didn't like the local Liberal candidate (a problem exacerbated in late January) and being a Liberal would likely have precluded me from being able to work with the Andrew House campaign during the election. Even though I don't like the Youth label, Mr. House is a very astute younger politician who would have brought a fresh face and outlook that Alexa Macdonough and Martin MacKinnon simply could not bring.
All that said, there's a chance I may rejoin the Liberal party next year, when I'm the even-older age of 26, so that I can avoid the YLC attachment. A lot of it will depend upon who emerges as the leader of the party, where I'm at on the ideologicial spectrum vis-a-vis that leader, and how good of a job Harper does in his first year as Prime Minister of Canada. There's a lot of "ifs" there, but time will tell.
My personal preference, and this is not a prediction, is that Michael Ignatieff wins the race. A lot of people make a big deal out of the fact that he's lived outside of Canada for most of the past thirty years. That's fine, and they're certainly entitled to do so. In spite of that fact, Ignatieff is more on the pulse of the future of Canada than most who actually do live here full-time are aware of. All one needs to do is read The Rights Revolution and his essay "Canada Meets a Moment of Truth" to capture the sentiments of many when it comes to human rights and Canada's place in the world.
I know that many people opposed the war in Iraq, but I'm curious as to whether that was because of the process or because of the conflict itself? I'm not a big fan of "what if history," but what if there was a UN resolution, what if there was a strong voice within Canada that liberating 25 million people from a brutal tyrant was something that Canadians should stand up for and support, etc. To me, a lot of the opposition arose because of the process, indicative of what amounts to a fetish for multilateralism in Canada. We don't have the ability to do things on our own, and thus the fact that America does makes Canadians (and Europeans, and the Russians, and the Chinese) wary of American power. It's a natural reaction, and thus when you add that to a long-simmering anti-American sentiment because of other issues, the pot simply boiled over on the Iraq case. Ignatieff's support of the war was not some neoconservative-inspired or -sympathizing approach; his focus was on the humanitarian aspects of regime change. As an author of The Responsibility to Protect--a Canadian endeavour that establishes the criteria for intervening in another sovereign state--he knows a thing or two about when those criteria are breached.
The torture issue is another one that dogs Ignatieff. I wrote about it a few days ago here, you can scroll down to read my response. Simply put, the people who say that Ignatieff supports torture are the people who don't have the attention span to read a full-length academic article.
Of course, Ignatieff is not the only candidate in this race; he's my preference, but there's another person I wouldn't mind seeing win. That is Stephane Dion. Many of you will know that Mr. Dion is the reason that I am involved in politics in the first place. Way back in 1997 I had to do an assignment in Social Studies where I'd have to write a letter to a politician on an issue that was important to us. Always one interested in ways to keep the country together and a tough anti-separatist in the mold of Chretien (not Martin...see Delacourt's book), I asked about the legalities of whether or not Quebec separation could be done. Remember that this was before the Quebec Secession Reference and the Clarity Act and only 1.5 years after the '95 referendum. I wrote to the PM, but the response came from Dion, who was Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs at the time. There was a rather large package of stuff and information, and a personally written and signed response. I thought that was really great and I appreciated the time Dion took to answer a question from a 16-year old kid from Okanagan Falls. So yeah I've got a soft spot for Dion.
I see him as the 2006 version of what Chretien was back in 1990. He's been around forever, has had numerous major portfolios and some significant achievements, he knows the in's and out's of Ottawa like nobody's business. There's really not much left for him to do, so he may as well take a run at being the party leader. I don't know if he's the senior statesman in the party, but he's got a lot more qualitative Cabinet experience than most, and that's something which none of his major opponents can claim (well maybe Bob Rae in Ontario). There's also that party convention where they alternate between an anglophone and francophone leader, and since he's the only declared fracophone candidate so far, that gives him a pretty good base of support in Quebec. He'll make it far so long as he sticks to the record he's built up over the years.

Ignatieff and Dion are the two guys I perceive to be the frontrunners at this stage. That can change, and when I see that happening I'll say a little more about the others. Either of these two would make a fine leader. I favour Ignatieff not only for the intellectual reasons but also because he's a fresh face. Canadian politics can get awfully stale sometimes, and though I respect Dion enormously, I'm not entirely sure that turning to a Chretien-era Cabinet minister is the best way forward for the Liberals.
I'd like to see more women getting involved in this race, as well. Hedy Fry is not a credible option, and that "burning crosses" comment will haunt her until she retires. Carolyn Bennett is a name that I've heard (not just for the notorious Defence Policy Debate we did at Dalhousie) who might enter the race. If she's important enough to blow off a bunch of university students she's got to have something going for her. I honestly haven't heard too many other names, in part because I'm not a Liberal and thus on the outside but largely because I've been focusing too much on school stuff to pay full attention, but I really hope that some strong female candidates do put their mark on this campaign, not for the sake of having women candidates, but to inspire other women to get involved in the process and make their voice heard much more strongly than we presently see.