Friday, May 15, 2009

Ignatieff Puts Harper In Perspective

The first time I heard Michael Ignatieff speak, it was several years ago when he read his book The Rights Revolution on CBC as part of The Massey Lectures on Ideas.

I remember thinking "wow, but this guy's an amazing speaker" at the time. Yes, his style is a bit ornate, but it pulled me in and made me pay attention to what he had to say...and what he had to say was articulate, reasoned and reasonable.

Well, so far his response to the latest round of Conservative character assassination has been spot on.

In his speech, the Liberal Leader hit directly at criticisms of the years he spent in Great Britain and the United States as a writer and academic, and elsewhere as a war reporter, saying that sometimes a person only sees how Canada is an inspiration to the world “from afar.”

“Stephen Harper doesn't understand that. Stephen Harper thinks if you've lived and worked outside the country you're somehow less of a Canadian,” he said to the Laborers International Union of North America.

“Is that the type of Canada you want? To have a government decide who is a good Canadian and a bad Canadian? Who is a true Canadian and who is a false Canadian?

“You know and we know that no matter where we come from, where we live or have lived, we are all of us proud Canadians.”


As for Mr. Harper, he's engaging in his usual pugilistic politics of desperation. I can only hope that outside of Alberta, Canadians are seeing these ads for what they truly is - awful government.

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