MARTIN O'MALLEY:
Prime Minister Michael Ignatieff?
CBC News Viewpoint | June 30, 2005 | More from Martin O'Malley
At least one generation of Canadians knows the line, "The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation." Pierre Elliott Trudeau made it famous, but the line belongs to Martin O'Malley, who wrote it when he was with The Globe and Mail. He's written eight books, on topics such as the Canadian North, medicine, murder, media literacy and baseball.
I'm not sure whether it has a ring to it or not but expect to hear it more and more in the coming months. Michael Ignatieff is knock-knock-knocking on the door of 24 Sussex Drive.
Ignatieff is a 58-year-old journalist, author, educator and what Michael Valpy of the Globe and Mail this week called a "celebrity intellectual." Ignatieff is director of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University.
Later the same week the Globe's Roy MacGregor devoted a column to the rising of Ignatieff, describing him as a perceived threat to the leadership of Paul Martin.
Both writers mentioned Ignatieff's keynote speech to some 2,500 delegates at the Liberal Biennial Conference on March 3, 2005, the party's first policy convention in five years. Many are dusting off that speech and rereading it.
MacGregor says it marked the start of a campaign by Ignatieff to replace Martin as Liberal leader, which is the same as saying to replace Martin as prime minister. MacGregor believes Ignatieff "used the opportunity to contrast the vitality of the early Trudeau years to the lassitude of the Martin year."
No doubt the Globe looks fondly on Ignatieff, as he is one of theirs. Valpy and Ignatieff were colleagues when they worked at the Globe in the 1960s. I worked with Ignatieff myself, though we're both not sure exactly how.
My recollection is of the summer of 1967, when the Globe assigned me to cover Expo 67 for a spell. One day I was asked to take a young reporter under my wing, show him the ropes. I was in my mid-20s, he was still a teenager, though a formidably educated one.
I asked Ignatieff this week if he remembered that summer. He told me he remembers working for the Globe, remembers spending time that summer at Expo 67, but he couldn't remember my taking him under my wing. Darn, thought I had locked up another anecdote for my grandkids if or when he does become Prime Minister Ignatieff.
References to Martin in Ignatieff's speech last March seemed supportive of the current PM, but much in political speeches is conveyed by what is not said or by what is said between the lines.
Ignatieff's mentions of Martin include:
- "As the prime minister has said, we want to build 'a society based on equality not on privilege, on duty not on entitlement.' Liberals understand that you can't have a united country unless you have a just society, and a just society is an equal one."
- "For Liberals, gay marriage is an equality issue. The government's position gets the balance right. We will not compel religious communities to perform ceremonies that go against their beliefs, but we will not deny marriage rights to Canadians on grounds of sexual orientation. What counts for Liberals is not orientation. What matters is conduct and character."
- "Today, the prime minister's leadership has given us sound public finance, enviable economic growth and the capacity to fund the social programs that make us a decent society."
Doesn't sound to me like shabby support for the PM. Still, many regarded the tone of his March 2005 speech as damning Martin with the faintest of praise.
When Ignatieff got eloquent and passionate – in exquisite English and French – he was speaking about the Liberal party and not the soft old geezer leading it. He said nice things about other prime ministers, including Lester Pearson.
And he came close to a swoon when he described how he felt at the 1968 leadership convention in Ottawa that selected Pierre Trudeau as leader.
Ignatieff was a delegate at that convention, not quite 21 at the time. Trudeau was 49, an intellectual from Quebec. As Ignatieff stood in the crowd that evening in Ottawa and realized Trudeau was going to become Canada's next prime minister, a line of Wordsworth came to mind: "bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/But to be young was very heaven!"
It was an excellent speech. I'm surprised that much of it has not been burned into our Canadian consciousness, as when he declared:
- "Being anti-American is a lousy way to be a proud Canadian. A superiority complex towards our neighbour is as foolish as an inferiority complex. Our identity is perfectly secure and it is rooted in our institutions: parliamentary government, la langue et la culture française, our aboriginal heritage, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have always done things differently here. We always will."
- "Our party has never regarded Quebec as the problem because we know Quebecers have always been part of the solution. From the days of Baldwin and LaFontaine, Macdonald and Cartier, the partnership of two peoples has held our country together.
- "Liberals have always said no to anti-Americanism. Leave that to the NDP. Anti-Americanism is an electoral ghetto. Leave them to wither inside it."
Of course, getting elected as a Liberal doesn't assure Ignatieff the party leadership. Martin is still up there, and now we have – ha, ha – that other formidable intellect – hee, hee, hee – who recently crossed the floor to become a cabinet minister and is expected – HA! HA! HA! – to take a run at becoming prime minister herself.
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