Win leadership, lose country
Iggy Can’t Lead
I don’t often comment on Liberal Party goings on, but the integrity of Canada as a unified nation is a hot button topic for me which always transcends party lines.
Michael Ingatieff, trying to solidify his Quebec support and weaken other leadership candidates, decides to use a wedge issue – the concept of nation within Quebec – to further his cause. Iggy should be ashamed of himself, but at least to the rest its underscored that Iggy can’t lead.
Its a strategy designed to win him the leadership, but destined to lose the country.
And of the others? Bob Rae in his wishy washy way, perhaps realizing that he’d been outflanked for the leadership, half-endorsed and half-criticized Ignatieff’s call.
Stephen Harper, always keen to drive wedges in where they hurt the most, won’t follow Iggy’s tune on this one, and you can bet by the next time an election is held, if Iggy is at the helm, Harper and his bunch will have wrapped themselves in the flag, portraying themselves as the only ones who can save Canada. For those paying attention, the rhetoric spouting from the blue machine will sound a bit rich, coming as it does from the man who infamously called out for Alberta to build a firewall around itself. But few actually pay attention to important details, it seems.
At least there is some rational thinking on the issue coming from both Stéphane Dion and Kennedy, and a particularly strong line of common sense to be found in what Dion wrote in an op/ed piece this week. Well reasoned, it should be required reading for anyone engaging in debate on this issue. In short:
I voted against the resolution put forward by the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada calling for the party to undertake the necessary steps toward a formal recognition of Quebec as a nation.
So, here is my position: I am proud to belong to the Quebec nation within Canada. The constitutional recognition of such a fact, although desirable, is not necessary because nothing prevents us Quebecers from participating and succeeding in this great endeavour that is Canada, a country we have contributed so much to building.
Nothing can justify our renouncing our Canadian identity. Such a rupture would be a tragedy, for ourselves, our children and future generations. We should not be encouraged to make such a mistake on the basis of a recognition that is desirable but not necessary. That is my position and I am more than willing to debate it because I do not underestimate the importance of symbols and recognition. But I do not believe that we should ask other Canadians for such a recognition until we have clarified what we are hoping to obtain from it.
Although it is an important one, I do not believe this debate is the most important thing we can do to improve Quebec and Canada as a whole. For me, the main priority by far is to ensure Canada is part of the solution, not the problem, to the crucial challenge of the 21st century: how to reconcile humanity with the ecological limits of the planet. That is the vision and the plan of action I am proposing to Canadians in order to combine the three pillars of our success: economic prosperity, social justice and environmental sustainability.
Quebecers have better things to do than to see this movie for a fourth time. We should mobilize ourselves to make our country a pathfinder in the 21st century. Let’s contribute all our talents, energies and our own culture, as we have always done in the past, when we have had to respond with other Canadians to great challenges. Stéphane Dion, National Post, October 26, 2006
Ignatieff shouldn’t be toying with ideas that the PQ and Bloc are only too happy to exploit. Canadians who love Canada, whose Canada includes Quebec, don’t want to be brought back to the precipice again.
Stéphane Dion, once dubbed the most unpopular politician in Quebec because of his very strong stand in favour of federalism at a time when the fires of independence in Quebec burned most brightly, seems to this observer to be the Liberal leadership candidate most capable to help us all hold this thing we call Canada together, again.