The performance of the Liberals in the polls made it inevitable that we would see changes in the way things were done.
Adam Radwanski raised the question whether Ian Davey's departure really need to be so brutally handled. Others opined that maybe the ham-fisted treatment was simple incompetence, or that humiliation comes with the territory. Possibly, I guess, but Adam's is the most important perspective as I see it.
Peter Donolo is a very talented, successful fellow who made what I'm sure wasn't an easy choice to uproot and go back into the service of a party he cares about and a country he loves.
I haven't known Mr. Davey as long, but he strikes me as a highly intelligent, exceedingly decent person, who similarly put everything he had into the candidate he supported and the work he was asked to do.
We all need people of this calibre to sign up for these assignments, in every party. We should want their efforts to be respected, and thus inspire others to do the same.
To dismiss this dismissal as simple ineptitude is to lose sight of one of the most important roles a leader needs to play. To inspire loyalty, leaders have to show how it's done, including when making very hard choices. To recruit great talent, leaders need to reassure people that they can count on a team to support them, when times get tough.
It's on Mr. Ignatieff, I'm afraid, that someone who gave so much to him appears to have been treated so poorly. It's in the Liberal Leader's interest to find some way to make this more right going forward, for his own sake, if not for Mr. Davey's. He can't afford to let his partisans think this was a telling "glimpse into his soul."
Bruce Anderson