April 20, 2006

The federal Liberals should choose Ignatieff as leader.

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

The race for the leadership of the federal Liberal Party has begun in earnest. And there are some strong and highly intelligent candidates already in the field or contemplating a run for the job, especially former Ontario premier Bob Rae and former federal environment minister Stéphane Dion.

But it is Michael Ignatieff, who, though elected to Parliament from a Toronto riding only last January, would make the most formidable Liberal Party leader.

There are those who think it is the height of chutzpah for Ignatieff to think he can return to Canada after three decades outside the country and become its prime minister. I disagree.

That Ignatieff has lived abroad and taught at universities such as Cambridge, Harvard and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales is, in my opinion, a plus, rather than a minus.

He comes from the cosmopolitan world of arts, education, and culture, and his world-view is far less parochial than many of his small-minded “Canadian nationalist” political opponents, who after years in the political trenches are unable to think “outside the box.”

And of course he is not tainted by the corruption that was endemic in the Chrètien and Martin years.

Ignatieff would be the Liberal most able to defeat the Harper Conservatives in a federal election. Why? Because this distinguished author and professor is the very thing most Canadians think they don’t like: a “neo-con.”

The word “neo-con” has become a term of abuse, almost an insult, in Canada, in particular among Liberals and New Democrats, thanks to the antipathy that has been generated to it in this country by the Bush administration.

Yet most Canadians have no idea of neo-conservatism’s historical roots. It originated within the Democratic Party in the United States during the Cold War 1970s, in opposition to both the “loony left,” who were prepared to appease the Soviets and co-exist with Communism following the Vietnam defeat, and the isolationist and reactionary Republican right, nowadays referred to as “paleo-cons,” as in paleolithic or ancient.

Most neo-conservative thinkers were former liberals and leftists, even socialists, people like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Senator Henry Jackson, Jean Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Norman Podhoretz.

Canada’s more liberal political culture and lower international profile has made neo-conservatism a less significant factor in our political life and this is why so many of us confuse it with other political doctrines.

The founders of the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance were mainly social conservatives and evangelical Christians — often called theological conservatives or “theo-cons” — rather than neo-conservatives. As for the old Progressive Conservatives, many were simply ideological liberals.

In order to avoid being “tainted” by the term “neo-con,” at least in this country, Ignatieff prefers to define himself as being on the “centre-left” of the political spectrum, and a proponent of “liberal internationalism.”

But, perhaps because he has lived outside Canada for so many years, he fits the neo-conservative profile almost to a T.

Basically, neo-conservatives can be defined as follows:

They are fiscal conservatives, and oppose big government, but allow a role for the state in mitigating those extremes of poverty and wealth inevitable in a free market economy. They do not advocate a laissez-faire "free-for-all" economic system nor are they social Darwinists.

They are social liberals, but without going to the extremes found among some of the politically correct. They tend to be “a-religious”and secular and are agnostic about, or even supportive of, abortion and same-sex marriage. More pragmatic in matters of morality than are social conservatives, they are far less likely to be swayed by religious arguments.

In international affairs, they believe Canada has a national interest and should be prepared to back it up.

They champion a robust, fairly pro-American policy, and are not afraid to assert that sometimes armed force is needed to extend democracy and defeat the enemies of freedom around the world.

So they look askance at the naivete of those who place their faith in “soft power” and who would have our foreign agenda be dictated by the do-gooders at the United Nations or among various “civil society” non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

“I believe in a progressive and compassionate approach to social policy; a moderate, creative and responsible approach to economic policy in order to fuel the growth required to enhance social justice; and a confident and realistic foreign policy that focuses on making a real and positive difference in our troubled world,” Ignatieff recently stated in the Globe and Mail.

This is neo-conservatism in a nutshell — and a far cry from the image painted by those who choose to slander it.

A true “public intellectual,” and fluently bilingual, Ignatieff arguably would be the most articulate and knowledgeable Liberal leader since Confederation (and yes, that includes Pierre Trudeau). He would attract voters from both the left and right.

Conservatives and New Democrats should pray to the political gods that the party chooses someone else.