Some very interesting information is beginning to emerge about the candidacy of Michael Ignatieff, liberal hawk and Iraq War supporter, in the Canadian parliamentary elections. People close to the Prime Minister, Paul Martin, are dropping
hints that Ignatieff was not their choice.
But a source close to the Prime Minister denied having anything to do with helping the man who is being touted as a possible successor to Paul Martin (LaSalle-Émard, Que.).
"You can rest assured that Mr. Ignatieff has no cheerleaders in the team close to the Prime Minister," the source told The Hill Times. "And not many people are ready to lift a finger to facilitate the debut of Mr. Ignatieff in the political arena."
More after the fold...
Tellingly, Paul Martin did not do the one thing that would have made Iggy's life much easier. He could have used his prerogative as head of the Party to bring Ignatieff in. Then there would have been no questions about the legality of the nomination. He didn't do it and the nomination turned into an ugly procedural mess that made it clear that Ignatieff was being forced on the district. Secondly, the war in the riding is being portrayed as Ukrainians vs. everybody. But the Ukrainian-Canadians who took over the riding association were Martinites. There was no reason for Martin to try to push them out of the way.
The anti-Martin, pro-Chretien wing of the party was certainly not behind the Ignatieff nomination. In the last few days, people like Sheila Copps, Warren Kinsella, and Lloyd Axeworthy have all criticized the Ignatieff nomination. Chretien's single most popular move was to keep Canada out of the Iraq War and the Chretien people certainly haven't changed their minds on this.
So who so desperately wanted Ignatieff to run? Not the Martin camp; not the Chretien dissidents. There is a third group here led by Alf Apps, the guy who apparently flew down to Cambridge to beg Ignatieff to run (and is now his campaign manager). The other very, very interesting question is why. I don't subscribe to the view that the recruitment of Ignatieff was done by people who thought it would be neat to have a Harvard professor in Canadian parliament and didn't bother looking at anything he wrote. I think the people who recruited him know his views very well and want this liberal hawk in the Liberal Party for this very reason. They think they can slide him in as a "champion of human rights" and that Canadians won't actually notice the real-time, real-policy decisions he has supported. Ignatieff's support for the Iraq War isn't a side issue, it goes to the heart of his ideas about preventative wars and human rights interventions. He thinks Canada should have gone into Iraq. Just wish his supporters would be more up front about this instead of trying to deflect attention away from his foreign policy views. But in Canada, where the population is overwhelmingly against the war, this is not an easy sell. "Champion of human rights" fits more nicely and every effort is being made by his supporters to distinguish between the two (in a way that Ignatieff doesn't do in his writings).