Updated. Please see below.
In case the title of this post was ambiguous, let me state it for the record: Sweet Lord Liftin' Jesus, but I hate Michael Ignatieff.
I know, I know, strong words, but bear with me. It was bad enough when he swooped back into Canada to try to capture the Liberal leadership, a position that has almost always leads to the prime ministership, despite not having lived here for decades and having spent precious little time dwelling on the issues of his native land.
It has been painful to watch his intellectual contortions on the issues of war with Iraq and the use of torture.
It was absolute agony to watch this feckless half neo-con throw himself into the status of Quebec debate with all the restraint of a first-year university student at a keg party, attempting to use the unity of our country as a political tool to further his leadership aspirations.
But it is white-hot needles in the eyeballs to say this: thanks to Ignatieff's blundering, Stephen Harper has had a chance to rise to the occasion and show some leadership, and dammit if the bugger hasn't gone and done exactly that.
The Liberal caucus said Thursday it would support a Conservative government bid to declare Quebeckers a nation within a united Canada, minutes before the Bloc Québécois tabled its own, slightly amended, motion in the House Thursday.The Bloc House Leader Michel Gauthier announced a slight change to his party's motion on the recognition of Quebeckers as a nation early Thursday, adding that the province forms a nation "that is currently inside Canada."
The Bloc was responding to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's surprise motion on the same issue a day earlier that Quebeckers form a nation "in a united Canada."
Mr. Harper's motion will go to a vote on Monday, and is expected to win the support of all federalist parties, after the Liberals announced their support.
The surprise move by the Conservative Party has undercut the Bloc's efforts to embarrass the Liberal Party over internal divisions over the nation issue.
With this smooth manoeuvre, Harper has spanked the Bloc, who had planned to use Ignatieff's screw up as a powerful rhetorical tool, and neatly skewered the Liberals, who are still flailing about trying to find a coherent position on this. Gilles Duceppe has been left to bluster, and to offer up amended motions that have not the slightest hope of passing.
OTTAWA (CP) — Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe has urged parliamentarians to take a hard look at Quebec’s place in Canada as they consider an amended separatist motion declaring that Quebecers form a nation "that is currently within Canada."The separatist leader told the House of Commons this morning that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s motion declaring that Quebecers form a nation within a united Canada was a clumsy attempt to “pull the wool over the public’s eyes.”
Duceppe says federalist and separatist forces in Quebec alike see Harper’s proposal as “just a partisan tactic;” he told Parliament to “stop sweeping this issue under the carpet and take a stand . . . without attaching any strings.”
Dream on, Duceppe.
So Harper's motion will pass, allowing him to rightly claim he has made a rather nice silk purse out the sow's ear that Ignatieff handed to him. Sure, it would have been better if Ignatieff had not handed the separatists one more tool to try to legitimize their loathesome project, but it's not like they haven't deployed the term "nation" for their own purposes for decades. I doubt they will get much more mileage out of this. The prime minister has, I think, maximized the benefit and minimized the risk from Ignatieff's foolish and divisive move.
Harper's little thorn - "within a united Canada" - nicely punctures the gas bags who have been thumping Canadians over the head with this issue for so long. It is both generous in its definition while still limiting in its scope. Even though this was a political ploy that made his rivals look like a bunch of buffoons and allowed Harper to mend a few fences in Quebec, it was a ploy well played and put to good use. So well done, Conservatives.
As for Ignatieff, Canada's dumbest smart guy, he will never be prime minister of a country he misunderstands so badly and misuses so cynically.
Update: Robert has lots of reactions to the "nation" motion, all of which are filled with portents of doom. I don't see it as being that bad, and I should caution everyone that the obits of this country have been written before. I remember quite well the depair that greeted the PQ's first election win in 1976. The country was not supposed to survive their first mandate. Remember when the Bloc was formed with the frighteningly charismatic Lucien Bouchard at its head? Surely he would lead the separatists to success. Well, not quite.
Say...isn't it kind of weird when I'm the calm one about something?
Update 2: Chet over at The Vanity Press also has a good take on this. He is also not quite as alarmed as some commentators, but he is rightly peeved with Ignatieff for opening this can of worms. He is also less sanguine that Harper has some sensible strategy behind his move.
I am getting pretty damn tired of people talking about how allegedly brilliant Ignatieff is. So, he's got a Ph.D. and has published books. Big deal, so have I. That doesn't mean you're brilliant; it just means you've been in school a long time. But Ignatieff has long been known as a hawk on Iraq and is now known as a panderer to separatism. On each of his two countries' biggest political issues, he's been not only wrong but positively destructive and irresponsible, playing blithely around with forces that he cannot control and clearly does not understand. Stupid is as stupid does, and Ignatieff has been remarkably stupid when it counted.I don't know if Robert's right in saying that this is the end of Canada; that sort of thing has been said repeatedly, ever since, you know, Confederation. But I have an uneasy feeling that we're in for several agonizing, angry years on the edge -- again. Don't ever forget whose fault it is.
"within Canada" really settles nothing. The PQ will say it gives Quebec nothing if it doesn't give it more power. I have seen this all before and it doesn't end well.
Strange,
Ignatieff stands up and says that the Quebecois represent a nation within Canada, then the Conservatives, the NDP, half the Liberals and, with some equivication, the Bloc all agree with him. And you say HE'S the one who doesn't understand Canada? What the hell?
Is it possible that he a) understands it a hell of a lot better than you give him credit for, and b) far from misusing national unity, gave his honest opinion and plan of action on a vital governmental issue in a leadership race?
What you seem to be doing is taking a man who you already disagree with for valid reasons, and then twisting his current actions to further justify your antipathy.
Greg - Who gives a tinker's cuss what the PQ thinks. One thing they won't be able to say anymore is that Quebecois are not recognized as a people. This doesn't give them much more ammunition than they already had. Harper mad ethe best move possible under the circumstances, and I think the Bloc's reaction shows that.
Yeti: Iggy was using the motion to divide and conquer within the context of a leadership race. And by the way, this wasn't curently an issue until he made it one. He did so for all the wrong reasons, and in the course of that created some serious cracks within the party he seeks to lead.
Harper, on the other hand, took the ball he was handed (as I said, I would rather Ignatieff had not brought it up at all) and ran with it. In this isolated case, I think he did right. In addition, only Harper could have passed this motion without setting the West ablaze with outrage. If it had come from the Liberals - or the NDP - we would have seen anger of almost NEP proportions from Western Canadians.
As for Quebecois being a nation within Canada, hey, they can help themselves to that term. Now let's get on to naming Acadians, Newfoundlanders, Maritimers and Western Canadians as nations too. Everyone can play, as long as we realize that we all share the same sandbox.
Tim: One thing they won't be able to say anymore is that Quebecois are not recognized as a people.
You are right, they will say they are recognized as a nation -- a nation surrounded by another, different country. They will argue that it is absurd having a nation inside another country and that unless Canada gives Quebec more power it's "recognition" means nothing. That may not play in ROC, but I bet it will in Quebec.
It may play out exactly as you say, Greg, but I don't see this as giving them much more ammo than they already had. Following the same argument, there will be nothing to stop the Cree from separating from an independent Quebec.
There are lots of minefields in this whole debate, which is why I would rather it not have been opened at all. But in this case, I think Harper made the best of it that he could, and made everyone else look pretty awkward.
Jess a sec here .....
So QUEBEC is a nation INSIDE Canada. Wolly-bully for them.
Who are the Arcadians in NB/NS .... a substantial but irrevelent minority? Manatoba has a large group of French people .. who, have historically done more to promote "french culture" in Canada than anyone in Arvida, Saguenay or Trois-Rivières(thank you Louis Riel)
To say that Quebec is nation is to say that other, distinct (as in with their own culture, literature and language) groups are NON-nations (within Canada). Bastard children of a foreign power .. because they are NOT QUEBECOIS - any more than people from Halifax are Albertians.
Like the english as a nation (within Canada), the french is as diverse as anyone else this country. To recognize one is to ignore the legitimate asperations and realities of any other.
Canada, as I learned in school, has two founding "peoples" - and "peoples" is not a term that corresponds to geographical or political limitations. I guess the prime example of this is the diaspora Jews. Spread all over the world they maintained their (various) selves as a nation ... irrespective of location or geography.
Nice move, Iggy (or is that Stephen) .....?
son of an Arcadien,
croghan27
CBC Calgary radio phone-in had a wide range of opinions on this from blase to semi-hysterical; a lot of emotions have been churned up from the past.
I do have to say that this was the first time Harper sounded like he was talking to Canadians, instead of recycling old Bush speeches. I'm inclined to agree with the radio show conclusion, that whether he comes out as a hero or a bum will depend on how it plays out. It's a statement I can live with.
I hate to picky, but I think you mean Acadian... of course, I do go to/work at Acadia University.
Sorry Josh:
You are, of course, correct. My neice attended there and I should know better. (When ARE you going to develop a football team in Wolfville, anyway, eh?)
What you did is: 1) correct a terrible speeling error and 2)made me realize that strong emotion should be bottled until tranquility.
croghan27
Hey, the Axeman won the Atlantic University Sport's Football Championship this month!
Iggy went back and forth on owning this one - which is tantamount to playing the race card in the American south - so if it blows up in our faces, he can always retreat to one of his previous positions on it.
If he loses the Lib leadership, which I sincerely hope he does, he may not even stay in Canada to see how what he has set in motion plays out. If he wins, we can expect Harper to trump him this easily every time.
Chantal Hebert weighs in on this one this morning.
I can't imagine the book MI will write when he huffily abandons the people of Etobicoke to their own fate sometime about mid-January. Some weighty tome about Canada's political immaturity, no doubt.
And which "national" identity do we think he will be donning when he next uses the first person plural ("we")?
I think "we" already know that answer to that question.
Maybe we should adopt Rick Mercer's plan:
"Let Quebec separate. Then all the other provinces will separate and join with Quebec. We can all become the country of Quebec. Then we can have a referendum and change the name back to Canada."
Shades of Eric Nicol who wrote about Lord Dufferin, I think it was, departing in a huff, the usual form of transportation for governor generals at that time.
I am impressed if Ms. Hebert's tale of Harper's consultation with the other parties in the Parliament is true.
If he can continue to operate this way, he could have an effective minority government such as the way Pearson and Trudeau had.
croghan27
And here's Iggy : desperately trying to regain that former sow's ear.
It's moderately amusing to watch them all accuse one another of taking the positions they do for partisan advantage, or of "playing politics" with the national issue. You don't say, eh? I mean, it would be nice to think that we had a political leader of some stature and vision in this muddle, but given the crew we've got, I think we can safely assume that they are all "playing politics."
The question now is how this plays out and to whose advantage. I agree with Tim that Harper has played this very well so far, but I'm wondering whether Coyne might not be partly right: could the Commons motion have the effect of defusing the issue for the Liberals next week? Given Ignatieff's compulsion to remove one foot from his mouth only in order to insert the other, maybe not.
and of course they're all forgetting the most important thing, 'oh canada, our home and native land'. anyone can be called a nation, i can declare my dog a nation....the difference is governments do not recognize natives as the SOVEREIGN nations that they are (royal proclamation).
the quebec seperatitists have never recognized natives as sovereign, a bit like israeli zionists, isn't it....claim rights, needing your own land etc., then go and undermine the rights of THE FIRST PEOPLE. how does the word 'ipperwash' sit?
will 'quebec as a nation' within canada allow east indians in quebec to be a nation withn a nation within a nation? i'm waiting to see all the follow up actions on this one....should be quite humorous.
iggy the poop is trying to deny his initial stance, send him back to harvard for some political science courses. keep him there.
You know, I don't think Ignatieff understands what he's done.