Who is Michael Ignatieff, anyway?
He’s been the leader of the liberal party of Canada for months now and we still don’t have much of an idea what he, or his new version of that party, stands for. Throughout the last months of the 2008-2009 parliament, he seemed to be almost as not conservative as the New Democratic Party, lead by Jack Layton–except rather than force an election over the summer, he agreed to a compromise with prime minister Stephen Harper over employment insurance issues and a review of same. But he’s not quite managed to answer the one question those not already committed to voting liberal want answered–what would *you* do differently if we handed you the country?
Now, as things start to gear up yet again for the return to parliament in September, there are those who find themselves wondering if this almost anything but conservative strategy he has going for him is actually going to work for him. Ignatieff is travelling down a very dangerous road if he plans to maintain this strategy leading up to the reopening of parliament. Canadians are getting tired of minority governments, but at the same time, neither party has managed to secure enough of the voters’ trust to win a majority–and the NDP is pretty well shot out of a federal government run unless they can come up with something that isn’t the exact opposite of whatever the government’s putting forward.
The conservatives are on shakey ground due to the recession, and the fact the more vocal critics are saying they’re understating the severity of the economic downturn–and not heading into the upturn fast enough. The NDP seem all too eager to do the exact opposite of whatever the liberals and conservatives want to do. And the liberals don’t seem all too eager to do a whole lot of anything differently–or if they are, they’ve not put anything forward. Right now, that means advantage conservatives. But only if the economy actually begins to rebound in some sort of tangible, job-creating way. And if that happens before the liberals can manage to get their feat under them, that ship might very well find itself sunk before it even gets out of the harbour. Which might be exactly what the doctor ordered.
