True Patriot Love was the canary in the coal mine, though most commentators cut Ignatieff a lot of slack because they were his friends, had the same agent, loved the idea of one of their own in power, hated Stephen Harper, or never bothered to read it. Hastily written, a patchwork of rhetorical platitudes and logical contradictions, it signalled that the celebrated author and public intellectual had put himself into the hands of advisers and publicists for whom the content mattered less than the cover. For fans of his wonderful book The Russian Album, or Barack Obama’s profoundly honest Dreams from My Father, Ignatieff’s reluctance to confront the deep questions of his self-imposed exile to Great Britain and the United States or his ready-aye-ready response to Bush’s war in Iraq carried evasiveness to the edge of dishonesty.
Even if public relations had been the goal, Ignatieff and his entourage showed dreadful political instincts in not delaying the book’s publication. Rather than strengthening his roots as a son of the True North strong and free, his account of the Grant and Parkin clan played to his weaknesses. It hardly helped his reputation as a condescending, narcissistic elitist to highlight his childhood in the bosom of the Upper Canadian establishment. He may have come from a dynasty of distinguished educators rather than plutocrats, but he seemed all the more obliged to the moneyed gentry because of that. If Bob Rae had always seemed a Liberal in NDP clothing, Ignatieff came across as a bred-in-the-bone Tory, a Vincent Massey Liberal, traditional in values, superior by nature, imperialist at heart, proud, ambitious, and entrenched. Woe to the family member who tried to deviate from the narrow path of jingoism and conformity. No wonder Ignatieff was the pet of Rosedale matrons and the York Club.
That, of course, is a rather small and unpopular demographic beyond downtown Toronto. Rich, yes. Influential, yes. An important constituency, beyond question. But much of the country hates the entrenched privilege and inherited snootiness of this latter-day Family Compact, while new Canadians don’t really give a damn. Ignatieff would have been better served to once again play up his immigrant heritage, Russian aristocrats who arrived penniless on these shores in search of freedom and prosperity, for that’s closer to today’s Canadian narrative than the driving of the last spike at Craigellachie.
There’s something oddly irritating about Michael Ignatieff that’s hard to pinpoint. It’s expressed obliquely in countless forms: his mid-Atlantic accent in English, his Parisian French, his languid delivery, his patrician air, his supercilious regard, the brass buttons on his blue blazer, the way he wants to ingratiate himself with the plebeians by slipping into slang or dropping his g’s. It’s probably a reflection on the Canadian spirit (maybe commendable, maybe not) that after a few minutes in his company many experience an almost irresistible urge to push him off his pedestal. Even his family was said to believe that the terrible thrashing he received for one of his novels, however bad for his ego, was probably good for his soul.
Envy doesn’t fully account for it. Nor can it be glibly dismissed as tall poppy syndrome, the pleasure mediocre people take in cutting down anyone who presumes to rise above the average. After all, Canadians tolerate and admire all kinds of high achievers, from billionaires to novelists, sports stars to scientists. But we get weird around the question of classes and prefer to reserve political power for the masses. Our ancestors fought a rebellion for that reason. Mackenzie King was a grandson of a rebel leader even while a pal of the Rockefellers. Trudeau was an iconoclast despite his wealth and style. The little guy from Shawinigan succeeded where the Rhodes Scholar who had danced with Princess Margaret failed. And while Upper Canada College may have produced an honour roll of ministers, judges, generals, diplomats, professors, authors, artists, business leaders, and Conrad Black, it has yet to produce a prime minister.
Our elections aren’t usually about extremes. Most parties that want to form enduring governments in Canada will try to hug the centre. What most Canadians seek, therefore, is balance and fairness. If too far left, pull back right. If too far right, pull back left. If too often in, throw them out. If too long out, put them in. And because democratic politics is one of the few vehicles by which those without power in business or society can scale the heights of power, there’s a deep resistance to letting the business and social elites run government as well. Who best represents me? is the question most voters ask themselves at the ballot box. Who best will speak up for the interests of the average citizen against the interests of the self-serving elites?
This was the quiet revolution that Trudeau initiated and Chrétien continued. The one may have inherited millions, the other may be related to a billionaire by marriage, but both saw themselves and were seen as outsiders by temperament and democrats by conviction. If the old brokerage politics led to inequalities or the status quo, they appealed, over the heads of the premiers, the CEOs, the editorialists, and the intellectuals, to the common sense of the common people. The people defeated three referendums, one national and two in Quebec, while their governments were yelling at them to vote yes. The people opted for a self-made electrician’s son from Baie-Comeau over a high-priced lawyer from Bay Street. The people supported the Charter and opposed the invasion of Iraq, and the people were right.
Here, I think, we come to the nub of Ignatieff’s troubles. If a political leader isn’t exceptionally clear and courageous about what he wants to accomplish in the face of the demands and wrath of the elites, he has to have a transcending connection to the people. Ignatieff has demonstrated neither. Not only does he exhibit all the mannerisms of a Toronto sophisticate, his background on both sides and his own record suggest he is more a courtier than a counterweight to the powers that be. Though Stephen Harper may be more so, he is at least a familiar, middle-class, suburban kind of dork who isn’t likely to be reading War and Peace aloud to Laureen or vacationing at his house in Provence. And French Canadians grow up on the fable of the dark, handsome stranger who comes from the faraway city and woos the innocent farm girl with his honeyed words. Beware, goes the moral, for he is the loup-garou.
Ignatieff’s fate may have been sealed shortly after the convention when Alf Apps assumed the presidency of the Liberal Party, Dan Brock became the leader’s principal secretary, and Ian Davey was appointed his chief of staff. The boys were reunited, along with many of their old pals and Davey’s girlfriend, communications adviser Jill Fairbrother. (She tried to spin the fact that there were dozens of non-Torontonians working in the office, but unless it’s a madhouse how many of them would get regular access or the last word?) The message was evident. Ignatieff was going to dance with the guys who brung him, even if they were as unready for their jobs as he was for his. Toronto was to have the leader’s ear at last, and it was soon telling him what it wanted: corporate bailouts one month, deficit reductions the next.
Loyalty was no doubt one factor. Trust another. Comfort a third. And Ignatieff once told a family anecdote that suggested a fourth. When his great-grandfather George Monro Grant was principal of Queen’s University, Sir John A. Macdonald confronted him by asking, “Do I have your support?”
“You always have my support, Prime Minister,” Principal Grant replied, “when you’re right.”
“Ah,” said Sir John, “but I need people who will support me when I’m wrong!”
It’s a good story but lousy politics. Leaders are inevitably surrounded by sycophants, Iagos, office seekers, and contract lobbyists who are forever telling them how clever they are, how smart, how absolutely right. It’s never easy to speak truth to power, but particularly difficult if your advisers also happen to be your friends. When times get tough, the wagons circle, the messengers with bad news have trouble getting through, and solace is only to be found in the company of yes-men.
Times did indeed get tough, as they always do in politics, but with a speed and ferocity that took everyone by surprise. Cocky with success or merely exhausted, Ignatieff and his team drifted through the summer — “thinking,” as the leader put it cryptically — but he emerged with no great ideas and no new reasons why the Thinifer should replace the Fattypuff. Ignatieff’s decision to try to bring down the minority government regardless came across as irresponsible, macho opportunism just when the country seemed to be pulling itself slowly and precariously out of the recession. And while his narrative was a bit clearer, his performance was just as erratic.
Worried about saying the wrong thing, world weary from the demands and pace of politics, he often looked worn down, beaten down, or just plain down. Indeed, there were rumours that he needed a nap in the afternoon or turned into a snarling wolf by nightfall. Rather than arouse a partisan rabble with the old rah-rah, he tended to smother it with an intense, lugubrious recitation of gloomy statistics and recycled programs. Rather than be recharged by his crowds like most politicians, he drained the energy from a room like some strange form of black hole. Rather than spring to his own defence against Harper’s attack ads, he looked barely able to keep his eyes open while standing, bizarrely, in a sunlit forest.
