Cack-handedness causes call to abandon ship!

Although the rumours haven’t yet pinned the tail on the weasel, talk about Liberals seeking to cross the floor are rampant on Parliament hill. No doubt caused by Michael Ignatieff’s “cack-handedness” when it comes to dealing with issues of party unity. The Count has announced he won’t support a private member’s bill put forward by Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla, and supported by none other than the Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic, Bob Rae. Who likes Ignatieff? Not his own caucus, that’s for sure.

John Ivison: Ignatieff takes a divided party and makes it worse

Posted: October 06, 2009, 5:49 PM by NP Editor

Full Comment, John Ivison, Canadian politics

Parliament Hill was abuzz with rumours about Liberals crossing the floor to join the Conservatives yesterday – a mystery all the more intriguing because no one could track down the identity of the potential defectors.

Here’s a thought — maybe the apostate is Michael Ignatieff himself. How’s that for a plan so cunning, in the words of Blackadder, you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel? The Liberal leader pursues a scorched earth policy, reduces the party’s support to sub-Stephane Dion levels and then deserts his post for the Tories. Far-fetched admittedly but it’s the only account that adequately explains the leadership’s apparent infatuation for self-immolation.

Okay — not really. But the words “amateur hour” are being whispered by even the most senior members of Mr. Ignatieff’s shadow cabinet.

The latest gaffe defies rational explanation. Mr. Ignatieff nearly blew his own toes off last week in his spat with Denis Coderre, the former Quebec lieutenant who resigned after finding his authority undermined by his leader.

Mr. Ignatieff limped back from Quebec City on Sunday and you might have thought he’d try really, really hard to rally his party around the Liberal standard. Instead, he took aim at his other foot and let loose both barrels. An unprompted press release issued by Judy Sgro, the Liberal seniors critic, said the leader and the party would vote against a private members’ bill that proposes to shorten the residency period required before seniors can claim partial payment of old age security to three years from 10.

The bill’s merits, or lack of, need not concern us. The head-scratching aspect was that it was sponsored by a Liberal MP, Ruby Dhalla, and seconded by foreign affairs critic, Bob Rae. No one on the Hill can remember a party publicly nuking a private members’ bill brought forward by one of its own MPs.

The incident was handled with a cack-handedness that is becoming characteristic. For one thing, the bill is not likely to reach debate stage for another three years. For another, private members’ bills are considered sacrosanct by everyone in politics, with the apparent exception of the Opposition Leader’s Office, since they are the one chance that MPs have to bring forward their own legislation, without regard for party discipline. Ms. Dhalla’s bill was built on older legislation supported in previous sessions by members from all parties and was an attempt to curry favour with a key Liberal constituency, the immigrant community.
Quite why Mr. Ignatieff felt the need to create new divisions within his own party is unclear. The Liberal leader displayed the political sophistication of a bull — which is appropriate given his office is starting to resemble a china shop.

The Sgro press release was likely issued in response to rumours that Ms. Dhalla is set to cross the floor and join the Conservatives. There appears to be no substance to that one — or to related speculation that other MPs like Martha Hall Findlay, Gerard Kennedy or Keith Martin are also bound for the government benches. The Conservatives have been trying to make the most of the chaos on the Liberal side of the House by tempting the disaffected. But one suspects that the big fish won’t bite and any who do make the trip across the two swords length in the Commons’ chamber will be minnows or bottom-feeders.

Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Dhalla, Mr. Martin and Ms. Hall Findlay all ruled themselves out. “I have said publicly many times that, even if someone is no longer happy in their original party, they must sit as an independent until such time as they can put themselves to election under the banner of their new party,” said Ms. Hall Findlay, who lost the 2004 election to Belinda Stronach, only to see her defect to the Liberals.

Still, if the floor of the House of Commons is unlikely to be sullied with Liberals crossing the aisle, that does not mean that anyone – anyone – is happy with the leadership’s performance.

Mr. Ignatieff has been the very antithesis of grace under pressure in recent days, commenting sourly in a Newstalk 1010 radio interview that Stephen Harper’s singing “is not all that much better than mine”.

Mr. Ignatieff was walking the line he himself drew — that everything Mr. Harper does is inept, including his ability to carry a tune.
Since he called time on the government at the Liberal caucus meeting in Sudbury last month, Mr. Ignatieff has been adamant that his party will oppose the Conservatives in Parliament.

The Liberals insist that they will stick with this strategy and vote against all confidence measures in the House. But there is heavy pressure from his caucus for Mr. Ignatieff to declare he will consider legislation on a case by case basis and even support the government on matters of confidence, if the alternative is an untimely election.

“We’ve been too ardent in our opposition and that has to change. Sure [Mr. Ignatieff] would lose face, but he’d save a lot of skin,” said one Liberal.

Mr. Ignatieff’s best, perhaps only, hope is to repeat to himself the consoling advice of Abraham Lincoln that “this too shall pass”, learn good judgment from his bad experiences and resign himself to an extended period in the wilderness of opposition.
If the recovery withers, and fear turns to anger, he may be able to re-invent himself as a credible alternative to Mr. Harper, in the same way that opposition leaders who disappointed early — like Dalton McGuinty and even Jean Chrétien — took advantage of the changing tide of events.

But this would require Mr. Ignatieff to show patience, competence and a compelling slate of policies. There are few signs to date that the Liberal leader has any of those attributes.
National Post
jivison@nationalpost.com

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