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Ignatieff turns on the charm: is he the next Trudeau?
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| Parent(s) |
Candidate
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| Contributor | Monsieur |
| Last Edited | Monsieur Feb 21, 2009 10:21am |
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| Category | General |
| Media | Newspaper - Independent |
| News Date | Saturday, February 21, 2009 04:20:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | The most significant part of Barack Obama’s visit to Canada this week may have been a meeting he squeezed in at the tail-end, with Michael Ignatieff.
Tall and distinguished looking, in a long coat and homburg hat, Mr Ignatieff, 61, is known to all as Iggy. And while the Canadian opposition leader is still less of a household name in his native country than in intellectual circles abroad, where he is well-known for his work as a writer, human rights activist and broadcaster (he presented the BBC’s The Late Show for years), that is changing rapidly.
This week, he could have been on the red carpet greeting the President but for his decision not to bring down the minority Canadian government when handed the opportunity in December. Now, with his natural ally in the White House, he finds himself plotting a way to power. “I do feel I made the right decision,” he said yesterday. “It would not have been right to layer political instability on top of substantial economic instability. Make that kind of misjudgement and no power you win will be worth having.”
Mr Obama’s meeting with Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, who was a close ally of George Bush, drew most of the media attention – with both men awkwardly at pains to emphasise what close allies their two countries are. Mr Ignatieff, who leads the left-of-centre Liberal Party, was only allotted a 10-minute slot in a draughty, disused hanger at Ottawa airport even though his Parliament Hill office is just above the room where Mr Obama spent most of the day.
But those 10 minutes stretched to 25, and Mr Ignatieff, who many see as a prime minister-in-waiting, emerged smiling from the encounter. He said he was flattered to be complimented on articles he had written before entering politics. “It made this particular Canadian author feel pretty good,” he said. |
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