Michael Ignatieff, the leader of Canada’s Official Opposition party, the Liberals, who may actually form the government in the near future, is a Canadian resident, but he has been out of Canada for 27 of the last 30 years, in the UK and in the US. He left Canada in 1978, and came back and was promptly elected to parliament in a “slightly dodgy acquisition of the nomination in Etobicoke-Lakeshore (all possible opponents were declared ineligible)” in 2005. He is now the leader of the Liberal party which may become the de facto ruling party in the new year if a vote of confidence fails and the Coalition takes over the government, so we could have a Prime Minister who has been living and working outside of Canada basically since 1978.
I have a problem with this; I am having a hard time seeing how someone can govern a country that they haven’t lived in for such a long time. Am I out to lunch here? Ignatieff is quite intelligent and qualified for the position in all ways except actually having been a resident of Canada for most of his adult life. Would this bother anyone else, if, for example, Obama had just swanned in from Kenya three years ago and then was elected President? Does anyone else have a problem with the idea of a national leader who hasn’t lived in your country for an extended period of time? What are the exact problems with this, if you see any?
I have some problem with it. But more in the ‘it just doesn’t sit right’ category than anything logical or reasonable. So ultimately while it may be disquieting i’ll try not to hold it against him. If he knows what he’s doing it shouldn’t really matter where he’s lived.
I started a thread in GD to find out what folks know about him, because I know very little. Nobody else seems to know much either, and I like to think we’re a pretty knowledgeable crew of CanaDopers. This is not terribly inspiring.
I don’t trust him simply because I have absolutely no reason to, I haven’t watched him campaign or speak or anything like that, and he has no Canadian public service record to point to. I know he’s an academic (and by all accounts a good one) but there is no reason to believe that would make him a good politician (I have known too many academics for that …)
If he’d been around a bit more in the last 30 years, he’d have more of a record to stand on.
I’ve always felt that the Anglo nations - US, Canada, Australia, UK - are more like one big country. I’d be fine voting for a Canadian for POTUS. The guy was in England. Who cares?
I haven’t really formed an opinion of Ignatieff, but my understanding is that he’s very well versed in Canadian law, politics, etc from an academic point of view. If that is the case, then an argument could be made that by having been away for so long, he might have a perspective on things that the average Canadian politician might not, which could be a good thing. He might not be as blinded/emotional about regional issues as many others are. Perhaps he’s got ideas that could in fact satisfy several regions, without favouring one over the other?
Ok, that’s a best-case scenario; I have no clue if he’s ever said or done anything to suggest that could be the case. But I can’t help but think that if “didn’t live here for 27/30 years” is the largest criticism anyone can throw at him, perhaps he wouldn’t be that bad? Of course, I know next to nothing about the guy and don’t know any of his intended policies, so there might be worse stuff to say about him!
That just does not cut it for me. Having lived away from Canada for extended periods, I know that it is pretty much impossible to maintain a “feel” for what the people in the country are thinking and feeling. Not that our politicians typically give a rat’s ass for what the people think…
For me, he’s pretty much an unknown quantity. I’d have to see/hear a whole lot more of him before I know if he’d be a good leader of the country.
I’m not to familiar with how Canada’s government exactly works, but if it’s similar to the U.S.'s, where bills are passed through Congress first, then the President signs off on them…you don’t really need to be in the country to see if the bill needs to be passed. Usually the bill outlines the problem, and outlines exactly what the solution is in the bill, so the President can just read the bill and choose to sign or veto. However, that’s just one job the President has.
He was working as an author, a documentary film-maker, a staff member at University of Cambridge and Oxford, political commentator for the BBC, and director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy (so not just sitting on his ass on a beach in Jamaica ). He certainly brings broad experiences and new perspectives to the position, no doubt about that.
What really gets my goat is that Ignatieff was essentially handed the position, rather than earning it the good old fashioned way. All other potential candidates were pressured to stay out of the race or bow out, which means the rank and file members of the Liberal party really had no say on who their new leader should be.
Hmmm… wait… why does that sound strangely familiar?
I live in Etobicoke-Lakeshore. I didn’t vote for him. He had supported the Iraq War (though according to Wikipedia, he later recanted this support). And the Ukrainians were pissed at him for some reason.
From my experience with Ukrainian people (by that I mean one of them) I can make the horribly overreaching generalization that they are just naturally a bitter, angry people, pissed off at just about everyone.
No love for New Zealand, Ireland, or South Africa?
I’ve always had kind of a problem with the whole concept of the Anglosphere. Sharing a common language doesn’t really mean a great deal, IMHO, and, due in part to regional differences, societies and cultures of the individual countries have branched apart significantly. Even between Canada and the US, differences are non-trivial and even dramatic, particularly at the political level. Not to mention the fact that most other so-called Anglosphere countries want to distance themselves as much as possible from us crazy 'muricans.
Doesn’t bother me at all. Someone in another thread said that they don’t believe that you can really “understand” Canada if you’ve lived abroad for so long, but I think that we’ve also established that different parts of Canada are so different that living in one doesn’t give you any special insight about the other regions. So I think Ignatieff “understands” Canada just as well as the other national leaders.
Canada is a de facto parliamentary system. There is no president, nor even an executive branch as such. The British monarch technically fills that role, but in practice they have a Prime Minister who is part of the legislative branch, who does what the U.S. president typically does here. they also have this weird office of Governor General who acts as a stand-in for the Queen, but as far as I can tell in practice this officer does little most of the time.
This distinction is why what happened in Canada in the OP probably couldn’t happen here, though as far as I know there is no law preventing it. Barack Obama (for example) had to run for president separately, on his own. He was not selected to be head of state by his party after the party won an election. Sure, the party nominated him, but winning election was primarily his personal responsibility as the candidate. The apparatus that helped him get elected–the fund raising, the network of volunteers–was attached to him personally, not his party (though most were party members first, I’m sure). It usually takes years to amass the political clout, money, goodwill, influence, etc. to run for president. Obama’s victory is notable partly because he did it with so little time on the national political scene; really, only four years. John McCain, by comparison, has been in congress working his way up since the early 1980s. George W. Bush also burst on the scene with a short political career, but he had strong name recognition, and the Republican party is known for having a more insular and less competitive process for selecting its candidates.
Canada’s system is convoluted, from my point of view, but so are parliamentary systems in general. I don’t think the British/Canadian way would ever work in the U.S… Everything works on an honor system, where people do what is expected, etc. I think it would descend into anarchy here.
Please tell me you’re kidding. Or at least not an American; it’s the only way these statements would not make me gag. Two points:
[ol]
[li]If George Washington were alive he’d probably punch you for saying we are “one big nation” with the likes of the UK and Canada. NO WE’RE NOT.[/li][li]No foreigner can legally serve as president. It’s explicitly stated in the U.S. constitution, Section I, Article II. Not even naturalized citizens are eligible.[/li][/ol]
I’m not sold at all on Ignatieff. I can’t help but comparing him to my old college advisor, Niall Ferguson, who also has held staff positions at Oxford and Harvard, who also has been called one of the “100 most influential people in the world,” who also has written extensively about history and politics (often in the same newspapers), and who also is considered a world-class intellectual (whatever that’s worth). Before Ignatieff became an MP one could say that Professor Ferguson had more political experience, through his counsel of the American and UK governments.
And yet, much as I personally like Professor Ferguson, I’d never recommend him for political office, much less as chief executive of a nation. All the experience he’s had as an academic never helped him with consensus-building. Of course he’s a smart man, maybe the smartest person I’ve even known. Yes, maybe he could learn how to build consensus and run a country. If I was a UK citizen, would I stake my country on that possibility? No, I couldn’t, not even for him.
Personally I wouldn’t recommend any Oxford academic I’ve known for politics. Oxford academia is almost the anthesis of consensus, as my thesis advisor despaired as she tried to herd the cat, goat, and wildebeest collection known as the Hebdominal Council together. Reading the article linked in the OP made me even less confident about Ignatieff. He sounds like a parody of the worst stereotype of Oxford: fiercely loyal until the minute he stabs you in the back.
So, no, what I’ve read of Ignatieff concerns me. It seems that the whole of his political career thus far has been predicated on his opponents conveniently standing aside. How’s that going to work for him when he needs to build the coalition? Convenient that Bob Rae was an old U of T colleague (as a fun exercise, ask some old U of T hands what they think of Rae, and what they think of Ignatieff), but I don’t think Jack Layton is going to be as conciliatory, and he’s an ally.
A bit over a year back I had a conversaton with a fellow who was a friend of both of them at U. of T., and who has kept in touch with one of them. He had a great deal of respect for both, but since he sits will to the left, he prefered Rae’s politics.
For my self, I am concerned that the distance between Ignatieff and Canada may be be problem, but the flip side of the coin is that same distance may help provide a better perspective for him – sometimes looking in from the outside helps one avoid missing the forest for the trees.
). He certainly brings broad experiences and new perspectives to the position, no doubt about that.
