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Doh! Starring: Michael Ignatieff

by Scott H. Payne

The below audio wherein Michael Ignatieff, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, praises the US role in championing human rights globally and specifically George W. Bush’s role in explicitly committing to human rights in the “Arab world” has been circulating my Canadian Facebook network far and wide,

The full audio can be found here.

Needless to say, this is a bit of a doh! moment for Ignatieff given the swirling charges around the use of torture techniques by the Bush Administration, the generally perceived failure of the Iraq invasion, and the fall of neocon/neoliberal national-building sentiments from grace. The audio was recorded back in January 2005, just shy of a year before Ignatieff returned to Canada with the express purpose of running for office. And, of course, Ignatieff’s stance on human rights, American exceptionalism  and assuming the “lesser evil” approach to national and global security isn’t exactly breaking news, which shows as much about how little attention many Canadians often pay to their political leaders as it does anything else.

That said, it doesn’t strike me as helpful that this audio is circulating now and may goes to undermine some of the arguments that the Liberals are trying to make vis-a-vis the handoff of Afghanistan detainees into torture environments — though, absent the comments about Bush, I think Ignatieff could make at least a substantive case for his positions. No large media outlets are picking it up (because, you know, it isn’t really news) and I wouldn’t expect that to change. If the audio does surface, it seems sadly likely that it will be in terms of muddying the attack of Liberals against Conservative torture trespasses in Afghanistan.

While I know there were a a handful of folks on the eleft screaming about Ignatieff’s views on human rights when he came back to Canada in the first place and during both his successful and unsuccessful leadership bids, it is pretty sad how little play the expressed views of one of the most currently prominent Canadian politicans have seen nation-wide. It is really an indictment of how little truly critical analysis is involved in mainstream political discourse in Canada and should function as a spur to those of us who would like to see the situation otherwise.

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2 comments

1 Cascadian { 10.23.09 at 12:54 pm }

Canadian Libs are all over the place. Dion and now Iggy? When are they going to get their act together? Leaked comments from Harper’s private functions can’t sustain them forever.

2 Katherine { 10.23.09 at 3:06 pm }

It’s fairly disturbing how little attention people are paying to Ignatieff’s views. His support for the invasion of Iraq and his support for some forms of torture are major reasons why I could never vote Liberal while he’s the party leader. (The others are the fact that he’s spent most of his adult life outside the country and the general apathy he showed towards the idea of Quebec separating in a book he wrote in 1995.) I think the truth is that most Canadians, though, aren’t inclined to be very interested in foreign matters that don’t deeply affect them – there’s interest in Afghanistan because Canadians are dying there, but opposition to someone’s foreign policy or even views on torture on a moral basis is not a priority for most people.

This ought to be an issue of greater interest than the Conservatives’ distribution of stimulus funds (slanted as that seems to be).

I hadn’t seen this video of him praising Bush’s human rights record, though. Fits with what I know of him. He has a tendency to massively sugar-coat neoconservatism.