Iggy Moment

We want an audit, do you understand what I am saying?

PAT McGRATH, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

Michael Ignatieff and Gilles Duceppe

By National Post Staff  May 21, 2010 – 2:20 pm

Several months ago, Pierre Bourque, whose website Bourque.com is among the most influential news agglomerators in Canada, stopped referring to Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff by his common nickname — Iggy — and started calling him “Iffy,” a reference to both Mr. Ignatieff’s indecisive nature and his tenuous grasp on the job of Top Grit.
Anyone needing a example of why the change fits need look no further than Mr. Ignatieff’s insipid response this week to the mounting MP expense-audit issue on Parliament Hill. In a nutshell, Mr. Ignatieff said he doubts Canadians really want a detailed look at MPs’ expense accounts, but in case they do, he thinks a high-level meeting will scratch their itch. Auditor-General Sheila Fraser and the House of Commons Board of Internal Economy (BOIE) should sit down for a heart-to-heart and let Ms. Fraser explain “what she wants to do,” Mr. Ignatieff suggested. Read More »

The answer is blowing in the wind

The Liberals are at 25% in the polls and fresh out of ideas. Happy May 24, Mr. Ignatieff.
Stephen Harper “is winning on competence, one of two core attributes of leadership,” L. Ian MacDonald observes in the Sun Media papers. “The other is trust, which has always been his weak spot.” That sounds about right to us. And clearly it sounds right to Team Liberal, too — hence their dedicated focus on Afghan detainee abuse and the Rahimelena affair. It’s just too bad that nobody cares about those things as much as screechy Liberals pretend to.
Letting the Auditor-General audit MPs’ expenses — now there’s an issue Mr. Ignatieff could have made hay on. He’s since softened his stance, but obviously it’s far too late; everyone can see he’s simply blowing in the wind. Or as the Ottawa Citizen‘s Susan Riley puts it: “As with most of his reversals, it comes too late and too fitfully to be mistaken for bold, principled leadership.” (Not that supporting bog-standard expense account procedures that everyone in the private sector has to put up with should ever be mistaken for bold policy.)
Riley also points to Mr. Ignatieff’s flip-flop-with-a-half-twist manoeuvre on MP expenses as an example of how out of touch he is. Check out this fantastic quote: “[Canadians] want accountability and transparency — but I don’t think they want us to be going through receipts for this meal and that meal.” Uh, yeah. They do, actually. At least two of Mr. Ignatieff’s MPs, Michelle Simson and Marlene Jennings, seem to at least partially comprehend this principle, Riley notes. Since Mr. Ignatieff is still touring “church basements, labour halls [and] fishing wharves” like “a benevolent anthropologist discovering a charming new people,” perhaps he might want to seek advice from his caucus members, all of whom have lived here longer than he has.
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