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Bart’s Books: The Michael Ignatieff Experiment
“I had made myself into a politician, and I didn’t much like what I was becoming.” On my Christmas reading list this year was Michael Ignatieff’s latest book, Fire and Ashes, which takes the reader from the moment “the men in black” recruited him to come back to Canada, to his historic defeat on May […]
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Iggy Returns
Everywhere you go these days, there’s Michael Ignatieff. I’ve even seen him walking around Yorkville twice within the past month. For those who miss seeing Ignatieff’s face on every third commercial, you can read some juicy nuggets from his new book here, an excerpt on how he handled defeat here, and an interview with Aaron […]
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Justin Trudeau: Too Sexy For His Shirt, Too Sexy For Canada?
The only thing more predictable than Justin Trudeau’s win in the Liberal leadership race was that it would be followed by Conservative attack ads. For those curious what the sequel to “Not a Leader” and “Just Visiting” would look like, the wait is over: It should come as no surprise that the ad is repugnant, […]
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Rae’s Day
Every political commentator loves to say “timing is everything in politics”, and every Canadian political commentator loves to say that Bob Rae never had good timing. He had the misfortune of becoming Premier before he was ready to govern, and had the misfortune of governing during a recession. His “second career” is often portrayed as […]
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Election Post Mortem: The Liberals
In the 2004 election, the Liberal Party lost 37 seats. Liberals blamed this on Adscam, and they blamed it on Dalton McGuinty. This was considered a bad result, but the good news was voters had gotten it out of their system and, regardless, they’d never make Stephen Harper Prime Minister so there was a little […]
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Je m’excuse
If there’s one thing these election results have shown, it’s that we all owe Stephane Dion a big apology. For the past 3 years, he has been the punchline of every political joke. He has been ridiculed, and treated as if he were the biggest failure in the history of Canadian politics. And yet, as […]
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A moment of silence for our fallen comrades
The hardest part of last night for me was watching so many quality MPs go down in defeat. All too often, the individual casualties of a blood bath like this are overlooked, and aren’t given a proper farewell. So let me take a minute to thank a few of my favourites for making a difference. […]
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Everyone’s talking about Tout Le Monde En Parle
With 1.5 million Quebecers watching, Michael Ignatieff put in quite the performance on Tout Le Monde En Parle yesterday. He laughed, he was relaxed, he was confident. He talked about Liberal policies, he answered tough questions. It was a tour de force. The media reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. You can watch it online here […]