I expect most of the Canadians here have been bombarded with the negative tv ads reporting on the length of time Michael Ignatieff(leader of the Liberal Party) has spent out of Canada. Thirty -four years they say. He doesn’t really care about Canada.
I gave this some thought but decided it wasn’t a problem. I’ve harboured high hopes for him, mainly because he’s an intellectual reminiscent of Trudeau and somewhat like Obama.
Which leads to the following fantasy.
What if Obama , after 2016 was granted Canadian citizenship and subsequently was chosen to lead the Liberal Party in a following election?
Would you consider voting for him?
I’d say he would make a great prime minister with abundant useful contacts. He has the mind to understand the common people, and the judgement to accomplish the agenda of the Liberal Party.
In short, I see no reason to be concerned about his foreign background.
I guess the point is that if you really cared for, or liked, Canada you’d live there rather than just jumping at an opportunity to eventually become PM as the only reason to move.
The same for Obama. It makes the assumption that there are no equally qualified people who actually live, and want to live, in Canada to fill the position.
Canadian politics is nothing like American so I’m not sure he’d be an effective PM. He would not only have to manage the running of a country with a host of subtle flash points, he would also have to manage the running of national political party. I’d be curious to see how he handles question period though.
There’s no conceivable reason he would do that for any constructive motivation, so no. Why would Obama want to do this? If he did, it would indicate that there was something wrong with him.
He could be a great President - I certainly think he is a much better person than Ignatieff - but he’s not Canadian. I’m a good father to my kid, but you can’t just transplant me to a family in South Korea and expect everything to go fine.
I’m not horribly enthusiastic about Ignatieff, either, even considering the alternative. I’m a Canadian citizen, and I’ve spent a lot of time in Canada, but one thing my attempted move year before last taught me was how much I don’t know about Canada. Maybe it’s different in the levels that Ignatieff moves in.
Hey Frank. I remember your move to Ottawa. I even offered to take you out for a beer. What, specifically turned you off regarding permanent settlement in Canada? I’m curious: that’s all.
Obama doesn’t speak any French at all, as far as I know. That would alienate Québec and make it damn hard for an Obama-led Liberal party to form a government, regardless of his qualifications. At least Ignatieff’s French is pretty good, which offsets the “been out of Canada forever” factor.
I actually don’t know all that much about Obama in terms of his interests and policies; where would he (and presumably his cabinet) stand on issues in Canada? If you could magically take away the charisma, would he actually be in line with most of the Liberals, or would he fall more towards the Conservatives, or actually be more NDP/Green (I somehow doubt that). Of course, this assumes that people vote based on a party’s policies… not always the case!
In your scenario, though, I don’t think it matters, really, how long someone has been here; no one has experienced everything it is to be Canadian. I don’t know a damn thing about life in Saskatchewan, and I imagine the average Vancouverite would feel completely lost in St-Joachim-de-Shefford, Québec, no matter how much they love this country. Taking the time to understand a sense of history, a sense of the overall values, is necessary, but at the end of the day, I want a leader that can promote this country well, speak without insulting Canada/Québec/anyone else, and manage a group of people who know how to manage budgets, make decisions that will improve this country, and not fuck up too often or for too much money.