Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff holds a red rose given to him while he toured downtown Markham, Ont., on July 15, 2010.Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
In his recent story about Michael Ignatieff, Michael Valpy found the Liberal leader to be a far more polished politician after his summer on the road. The reporter has written extensively about Mr. Ignatieff, including an in-depth profile in 2006.
Mr. Valpy took readers' questions, and the transcript is below.
The Globe and Mail: Hello and welcome to today's discussion. Michael Valpy will be joining us shortly.
The Globe and Mail: Just to be clear, today's discussion is with Globe and Mail reporter Michael Valpy. He will be taking questions about Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.
Michael Valpy writes for The Globe and Mail on public policy, politics, religion, spirituality and ethics. He has been a member of the newspaper's editorial board, Ottawa national political columnist, Middle East and Africa bureau chief and deputy managing editor. He is co-author of two books on the Constitution and co-author of The New Canada: A Profile of the Next Generation (2004). Mr. Valpy has won three National Newspaper Awards and was nominated for a fourth for a profile of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.
In 1997, Canada's Trent University awarded him an honorary doctorate for his journalism. He also has received The Queen's Jubilee Medal. He is a senior fellow at Massey College in the University of Toronto where he also teaches and a fellow of the university's School of Public Policy and Governance.
[Comment From Guest: ]Question for Ignatieff: Has the subject of merging the NDP with the Liberal Party been discussed with Jack Layton or other Liberal party member?
[Comment From Guest: ]If the question of merging the NDP and Liberals is off the table, why is the subject of a coalition government still being considered by the NDP and Liberals? Why is the media still reporting on a possible coalition government?
Michael Valpy: Hi Danielle, hi folks. If coalition is still being considered by the NDP, I'd be surprised if it is being considered by Michael Ignatieff. He didn't like it the last time; as far as I know he doesn't like it now. Coalition simply won't sell in the West.
[Comment From Mike: ]Do you think Mr. Ignatieff possess the necessary skills and understanding of public policy to help the Liberal's electoral success, particularly in such a Conservative haven as western Canada? And, if the party were to fall in short in toppling the Conservative government in the next general election, how open to you think he would be to the notion of a coalition scenario with the New Democrats, if they were to obtain the necessary seats to pass a vote of non confidence.
Michael Valpy: Hi Mike, interesting questions put side by side. Yes, I think he piossesses the necessary skills and understanding of public policy. But I'd be surprised if he favoured a coalition, despite what's happened in the UK and despite the fact coalitions are common in Europe. I think a majority of Canadians in Western Canada (I know, I'm repeating myself) were outraged at the idea in 2008; I don't think they would look at it any more kindly now. We're not there yet.
The Globe and Mail: Thanks for all your great questions so far. We will get to as many of them as we can. We appreciate your patience.
[Comment From Guest: ]Thank you for doing this Mr. Valpy. I was interested to see you use "iggy-mania" in your profile piece on Ignatieff. Resurrecting the thoughts and images of past Liberal glory are certainly exciting to those of us who are inclined towards the grits. But it begs the question, with the polarized electoral map now present in Canada, can Iggy (or anyone for that matter), build a national majority electoral coalition like Trudeau did?
Michael Valpy: I really like the question about whether anyone can build a national majority as Pierre Trudeau did. Well, he did. Brian Mulroney did, Jean Chrétien did. I think there is such a thing as Canadian shared values, Canadian shared aspirations, the imagined community of something called Canada -- something more than 30 mllion people occupying a common hunk of geography. So even with four or five parties it's still possible to have majority government on a Westminster-style first-past-the-post system. More difficult perhaps, but still possible.
The Globe and Mail: Danielle Adams from The Globe and Mail here. After joining Michael Ignatieff on his tour this summer, you describe him as being a more polished politician. However a recent poll shows his approval rating is virtually unchanged, while his party seems to be doing significantly better. This seems to suggest voters are shopping for alternatives after a summer of controversial Conservative decisions. Could you comment on this?
Michael Valpy: Danielle, I think that, if Mr. Ignatieff has become more acceptable to voters, his enhanced performance this summer will need time to filter through. He hasn't had a lot of media exposure over the period covered by the two Harris/Decima leadership polls which my article cites - the beauty contest polls taken in May and August - whereas Prime Minister Stephen Harper we see regularily and we're getting used to, which I think explains why Mr. Ignatieff's rating hasn't changed and Mr. Harper's has slightly improved.
[Comment From Bill: ]Mr. Valpy, I've read that the tour has seen a more personable, less rigid Ignatieff. Beyond the person factor, was there any evidence of more "meat on the bones" to the LPC or is it still the message of Cdns. looking for an alternative?
Michael Valpy: Re the question about "meat on the bones" of the LPC, you've asked the $54K question. Hands up everyone who knows precisely what the Liberals stand for apart from the fact they think Mr. Harper and the Conservatives have done a lot of wrong things. The difficulty for voters, I think, is that the Liberals are still feeling their way toward an identity. We get hints -- childcare policy (how many times has that been promised?), climate change policy, a more activist government (maybe), a return to the mandatory census long form and the long-gun registry -- but as the questioner suggests, we haven't seen the meat. The Liberals first seem to be concentrating on warming Mr. Ignatieff up.
[Comment From Myles: ]Mr. Valpy, I enjoyed your weekend piece on Mr. Ignatieff. In it you suggest that he's become less managed, less beholden to the strong hand of his advisors. Apart from him telling you this, what evidence do we have that his handlers are truly stepping back and letter Iggy breathe and be? We all know that the Liberal party has been wrought with infighting in the past and so I suspect there are many different pulls on his attention. Are we to believe that a party that's struggling to track with the majority of Canadians has settled on the trusting an unproven leader's instincts?
Michael Valpy: Good question, Myles. He says he's been unleashed, his wife says he's been unleashed, a couple of the leader's office mechanics say he's been unleashed -- they put the blame for his past leaden stiffness on the last team of mechanics. How much of all this is true? Can someone change his/her public persona? I actually called a psychiatrist I know and asked him if it's possible and the psychiatrist said yes. And as Mr. Ignatieff said to me, "Nothing else was working." So on balance, I'm inclined to believe him. I don't think he's the warmest person in the world but he was enjoying himself on the bus, he was enjoying the encounters with people, he did have a genuine curiosity about what they were telling him, and he did come across as natural and authentic -- which is a big change from even two years ago. As for whether the party would let him loose, I'd like to go back to his quote: "Nothing else was working." And he's a smart man. The party isn't setting loose a mouth-breather.
The Globe and Mail: Danielle Adams here. The Liberals begin a caucus meeting today for the fall's resumption of Parliament. How will Mr. Ignatieff maintain his current momentum without repeating last year's mistake, when he was ready to pull down the government, only to see his party's support cave in.
Michael Valpy: I suppose it will depend on whether Mr. Ignatieff can frame the issues he's talking about -- the sins of the Harper government and the virtues of the Liberals - in such a way that enough voters will see Conservatives as offending that thing called "Canadian values" and see the Liberals as an acceptable, or even welcome, alternative. So far, his framing isn't sticking. When the Conservatives put their foot in it, their voter support drops, but then it bounces back up again as soon as they're no longer in trouble, and Mr. Ignatieff has yet to sell Canadians on the notion that the Conservatives are inherently bad - anti-democratic, anti-compassionate, anti-government, whatever - and the Liberals stand for the angels of our better selves.
[Comment From Bub: ]Michael, What appetite do you feel there is for an election: a) fall, 2010; b) spring, 2011 c) fall, 2011 ?
Michael Valpy: Bub, I think what the polls are telling us -- and have been telling us for months -- is that no more than a third of us who intend to vote are sold on any party, So what will an election call result in -- we'll go back into the voting booths and do what we did two years ago. Or else we won't vote at all. I don't think there's an appetite for an election in the predictable future, and worse, I don't think one would be good for Canadian democracy right now.
The Globe and Mail: Did people on Mr. Ignatieff's tour comment on the wisdom of doing an "old school" bus campaign at a time when the political process is unfolding so much in the blogosphere and on Twitter?
Michael Valpy: That's an interesting question. The short answer is no, and I suppose that might partly explain why most of the people I saw at his bus events were north of 45 or even 50, not big on tweets or blogs (on the other hand, they belong to the age cohort that has something like an 80-per-cent voter turnout). But I think what Mr. Ignatieff's "old school" bus campaign was about was getting him comfortable with people, letting the media see him as warm, relaxed and politically effective and assuring the members of his caucus that he can do the job of leading and being prime ministerial. You can't do those things with tweets and blogs.
[Comment From Lamont Cranston: ]If Mr. Ignatieff is less than successful after the next election, what do you see him doing?
Michael Valpy: Taking up his visiting professorship at the University of Toronto. Probably. And at the urging of a significant chunk of his caucus.
[Comment From Frank: ]I once saw a Conservative attack ad where Ignatieff says something like, "We, as Americans, need to decide what kind of country we want . . ." which the ad implies he was including himself in that statement of citizenship. I consider myself a fairly close follower of political news and have not heard a good answer from Ignatieff to explain why he said that. Do you think such ads or his lack of clear rebuttal are the reason why his approval ratings remain low?
Michael Valpy: He had a habit, when he was teaching and being a commentator in the United States, of using the first-person plural and singular when talking about Americans. I assume that's where the advertisement came from, and the habit has come back to bite him a number of times. But, you know, this kind of attack ad may work with some Canadians but I suspect it's going to offend a lot more -- i.e. the idea that Mr. Ignatieff has spent so much time outside the country. Two million Canadians live more or less permanently outside Canada. I've lived four years outside Canada. A woman I met at a Liberal event in Victoria said she and everyone she knows have offspring studying outside Canada. We're a global country. We should be proud of the fact that we're good enough to compete internationally.
The Globe and Mail: We are out of time for today. Thank you for your participation in today's live Web discussion. Many thanks to Michael Valpy for sharing his time and his expertise.
Michael Valpy: That was a good exercise. One of the great things about writing for The Globe and Mail is having this kind of conversation with its readers. Thanks for letting me have the opportunity.