New role a gamble, Ignatieff admits
Brushes off talk of succeeding PM Lists national unity, diversity as issues
Michael Ignatieff clearly remembers the moment the seed was planted that led to his decision to return to Canada and enter politics. He was delivering a Massey Lecture in Toronto five years ago, and talked about Canadian approaches to human rights and the importance of the Charter.
“ A student got up and said: ‘ If you love this country so much, why don’t you live here?’ ” Ignatieff recalled.
“ And I thought . . . ‘ Bingo!’ ”
Yesterday, in his first interview since his decision to run for Parliament as a Liberal, the 58year- old Harvard academic and human rights expert, talked about the “ gamble” he is taking.
“ I have spent my life worrying about other countries problems,” he said. “ Now it’s time for me to worry about my own country’s problems.
“ The one burning thing I feel is that I do not want to be 65, sitting around saying ‘ I bitched about Canadian politics and never bloody did anything about it,’ ” he said. “If you want to know what the bottom line is, that’s it.”
If, as expected, Paul Martin’s government falls today, Ignatieff will run in the upcoming election. Jean Augustine, the MP for Etobicoke- Lakeshore, is expected to rise in the House of Commons today and announce she will not be seeking re- election.
“ This is unlike anything I’ve ever done,” Ignatieff said yesterday. “ I don’t know where it’s going; it may go nowhere.”
This is his way of responding to the buzz that he could be Martin’s successor as leader of the federal Liberals.
“ I’m not being coy or cute . . . I’ve rolled the dice on the latter part of my career,” he said. “There are no guarantees, no undertakings, no promises.” The most obvious question is why? Why give up a career at Harvard University for the uncertainties of politics to run in a city he has not lived in since he graduated from the University of Toronto in 1969?
Ignatieff begins with the appeal of public service — and the fact that he has been spending the last five years teaching students from 80 countries on how to engage in public service at home.
“ You spend five years teaching kids how to take political responsibility — it does cross your mind, what would it be like if you had to do it,” he said. But more than that, he added, he cares more about Canadian politics than the politics of any other country. The two issues he cares about most are bringing diversity into Canadian politics and national unity. Not just Quebec; the fractures and tensions can be seen across Canada.
“ The challenge is to fashion a new language of national unity,” he said, adding, keeping the country together was the primary responsibility of the federal government.
Ignatieff was approached a year ago at Harvard by a group of what he calls “ senior Liberals” — whom he will not name — and asked to come back.
“ That never happened before,” he said, dismissing rumours of previous invitations to run. “ I was flattered.
“ The thing I want to make very clear is that they were not approaching me to start a conspiracy, or a plot,” he said, and stresses his words carefully. “ The party has had far too many of those.”
His first public introduction was his keynote address to the Liberal convention last March. But that was preceded by a column by Peter C. Newman that billed the speech as “ his proving ground,” saying he might “ turn out to be the ideal successor to Mr. Martin.”
Ignatieff insists he was embarrassed by the piece; that it has made things much more difficult for him.
“ What happens in the fullness of time is not in my control,” he said. “ It’s not in my control.”
Yesterday, he stressed his support for Martin and praised his accomplishments during a difficult minority government.
“I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t feel the Prime Minister of Canada is doing the best job he can under very difficult circumstances.”
Ignatieff, who will run in Augustine’s riding, stresses how hard a job he thinks that will be.
“ I’m succeeding a popular MP, an MP who’s been an icon to her community, an MP with a tremendous rapport in her riding,” he said. “ Who the hell am I?”
Augustine came to Canada from Grenada, was a teacher and a school principal, and has served in the House of Commons since 1993.
“ That’s the Canada I believe in,” he said. “ Her story is an inspiration to lots of communities.”
Ignatieff talks about the diversity of the Etobicoke- Lakeshore — which is heavily Ukrainian and Eastern European — and points out that he has taken his children to visit the sites where Ukrainian- Canadians were interned during World War I, and that his own ancestors are buried in Ukraine. But that may not be sufficient argument for those who are complaining that he is being parachuted into the riding.
Yesterday, even as Ignatieff was chatting, Ukrainian- Canadians demonstrated in front of Liberal Party headquarters to complain that other potential candidates were being shunted aside. Members of the Etobicoke Lakeshore Federal Liberal Riding Association claim the Liberals are trying to push Ignatieff’s bid ahead at the expense of two other contenders — both of whom have Ukrainian backgrounds and ties to the community, Canadian Press reports. Winning them over will be his first challenge.