Attending one of the top private boarding schools in the country, Upper Canada College, is hardly what comes to mind when one thinks of a “publicly-funded education.”
And that’s why there’s what Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff would likely describe as a “tempest in a tea cup” brewing over his remarks recently that he has had the “good fortune of being a Canadian citizen.”
“Born here. Educated here. Had a publicly-funded education here that gave me my start,” he this weekend as his Liberal Express bus tour stopped in a small Ontario community.
Mr. Ignatieff, the son of a diplomat, was a boarder at Toronto’s UCC, a school that has educated Canada’s elite. So why is he claiming that he was the recipient of a public education? Is he trying to change the channel on Tory claims he is a wine-sipping elitist?
Asking these questions, and stirring up some controversy as a result, is the Sun newspaper chain – not known as a Liberal-friendly operation especially since former PMO director of communications Kory Teneckye joined the executive team.
On Thursday, Sun reporter Brian Lilley wrote that on his summer tour, Mr. Ignatieff has eaten “Timbits” and drunk Tim Horton’s coffee to “prove that he’s just a regular Canadian.”
“Now Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is trying a new tact to gain the common touch, claiming he became the man he is today thanks to public education. The main problem is Ignatieff is best known for his association with elite schools including Oxford, Harvard and Upper Canada College.”
This prompted another post by Globe blogger Norman Spector, who speculated that Mr. Ignatieff may have been the beneficiary of a government program that has “taxpayers picking up the tab for educating the children of diplomats posted abroad, including when diplomats are back in Canada.”
Mr. Spector added: “Perhaps this is what he meant by his ‘enormous good fortune.’ ”
No, no and no, the Liberals retort. They’re weighing in, trying to set the record straight.
“Let me clarify this,” a senior Liberal official told The Globe. “Mr. Ignatieff attended UCC on a combination of scholarship and his parents’ own money – not with ‘taxpayers picking up the tab.’”
Mr. Ignatieff could have been educated outside of Canada, the official added. But “his parents – who were being posted abroad – strongly felt that he should have a Canadian education. That’s why they sent him to a Canadian boarding school.”
As for Mr. Ignatieff’s “publicly funded education,” the Liberal official explained: “He went to one of the greatest publicly funded institution in the world: the University of Toronto. And he went there on a scholarship.”
