I just got back from the University of Calgary Liberal Association’s Death by Chocolate fundraiser. Michael Ignatieff was the guest speaker and he took to opportunity to announce that he would be running for the Liberals in the upcoming federal election. He didn’t say which seat he had his sights set on and, last I’d heard, the party still hadn’t found anything for him, but he seemed pretty sure of it. So take it for what it’s worth.

I’ll throw a full recap up tomorrow.

UPDATE: I got an e-mail from someone who tells me that the Toronto Centre riding association has called a “very important” board meeting for Monday. This might just be for election preparation, or it might be because of those long time rumours that Bill Graham will step aside to let Ignatieff run in his seat.

UPDATE…err…RECAP: I figured I’d keep all the Ignatieff stuff in one post, so here’s my quick recap of the event itself:

Good crowd (around 100 people) and most people I talked to were looking forward to the campaign, even though Calgary is a wasteland. As for Ignatieff himself, he’s still got that Dalton McGuinty speaking style and he’s certainly more of a polished politician than Ken Dryden (who they had at the event last year). He worked the room andhad some meetings with local Liberals earlier in the day (or so I hear…) which tells me there’s a bigger plan in the works than being a humble backbench MP for Toronto Centre.

Content-wise, it was probably less critical of Martin than his Liberal convention address but still had more of an academic than a political feel to it (for starters, it was long). National Unity, as always, was his major theme and he emphasized having a strong federal government that treats all Canadians equally (hear hear!). This guy’s best shot at becoming Liberal leader is definitely for a Liberal leadership campaign to fall during the build-up to a third Quebec referendum.

Speaking of which, he went after André Boisclair a bit and gave a few strong arguments against separatism – mainly economic but a few on “identity” as well.

All in all, a strong speech. I’m glad he’s running for the Liberals. It’s premature to talk about him for leadership until he’s had some experience in Ottawa, but he’ll be a nice addition to the Liberal benches.