Trudeau ‘undecided’ about Liberal leadership
Courtesy: CBC.ca
Liberal MP Justin Trudeau says he’s undecided about whether he wants to replace Michael Ignatieff as leader of their party following its historic defeat in Monday’s federal election.
The party’s disastrous results, which saw Prime Minister Stephen Harper secure a majority government and installed the NDP as the Official Opposition, cost Ignatieff his job.
Trudeau, one of only 34 re-elected Liberal MPs, said in an interview Wednesday on CBC News Network that the results were difficult to watch, but not entirely surprising. He said the Liberal party “has been in trouble for a number of years,” because it hasn’t been able to connect with Canadians.
“We saw this coming, although not this bad,” Trudeau said.
After being reduced from 77 to 34 seats, Ignatieff announced Tuesday that he is resigning as leader of the party. Ignatieff lost his seat in Etobicoke-Lakeshore. The Liberals will meet as a caucus next week and choose an interim leader to head the party until a leadership convention is held.
When asked if he’s interested in the job, Trudeau responded that he wants to see the Liberal party get strong again. “I’m undecided, to be bluntly honest. I don’t know whether me being leader is the answer,” he said.
Trudeau said that because of his name and the legacy associated with it through his father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, “a lot of people are turning to me,” and that it “concerns” him.
“Because the work that needs to be done is work on the ground. It’s not going to be fixed by picking a cute leader or the right leader or whatever. It’s going to happen by us putting our nose to the grindstone and really, really leaning into it, and right now I’ve committed and I am committed to making sure that the Liberal Party does those things,” said Trudeau, who was first elected in 2008.
“I honestly don’t know if me as leader is something that would help the party or the country,” he said.
Trudeau said that with two young children, he would have to take his family into consideration when making any decision about going for the leadership.
“I’m not sure that I can be the leader I want to be and be the father I want to be at the same time at this point in my life,” he said.
Trudeau said among the challenges that lie ahead in rebuilding the Liberal party is fundraising, and he acknowledged that the Conservatives are far better at it than Liberals.
Rebuilding the party is going to be even more challenging with fewer MPs on Parliament Hill, he added. He also said that knowing 43 of his colleagues won’t be returning to Ottawa with him was one of the most difficult parts of Monday night.
He called their defeats a “collective failure.”
“We all failed together in making sure that our values, our vision for this country, which I know is shared by an awful lot of Canadians, but wasn’t chosen on election night,” he said.
Budget Fail …
The Conservative Party Budget was tabled today. And all three opposition parties turned it down. It is all but over for Stephen Harper and his Conservative Government.
Now we wait to hear when we will go to the polls. As a Liberal voter, I have to say that I don’t think our Liberal Leader can win, let alone earn a majority in Parliament. And Jack Layton is nowhere nearer the Prime Minister seat as his compatriots.
We will see where my vote goes in the election.
Liberals officially name Ignatieff party leader
He is well spoken, fluent in both languages, He is focused and his acceptance speech was really well done. The crowd was wild and enthusiastic, 3000 liberals in one room was quite incredible to the new leader.
Michael Ignatieff officially became the leader of the Liberal party Saturday, five months after he took over the post from Stephane Dion.
“You’ve given me a great responsibility and will try to be worthy of your trust and I will give this job everything I got,” he told Liberals in Vancouver.
The new Liberal leader was quick to take direct aim at man whose job he’s after — Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
“For three years you have played province against province, group against group, region against region, individual against individual,” he said. “When your power was threatened last November you unleashed a national unity crisis and you saved yourself only by sending Parliament home.
“Mr. Harper, you have failed us. If you can’t unite Canadians, if you can’t appeal to the best in us, we can. We Liberals can build a federalism based on co-operation, not on confrontation.”
While certainly different in delivery, Ignatieff’s self-written speech echoed many of the themes that U.S. President Barack Obama used on the campaign trail.
Ignatieff spoke about hope and “change” for Canada, even borrowing Obama “Yes, we can” slogan at one point.
He said he believes Canadians will vote the Grits into office in the next election, and said his government’s main goal would be “to unite our people again.”
“The way out of this slump is hard, but the direction is clear,” he said, calling for a “far-sighted government.”
He also took pointed shots at the Conservative government, declaring the importance of science and research for future Canadian success.
The Harvard and Oxford-educated Ignatieff spent much of the early parts of his speech focusing on the importance of education and knowledge to the Canadian economy.
Ignatieff won 97 per cent of the votes of the 2000-odd delegates at the party’s three-day convention.
Former leadership rivals Bob Rae and Dominic LeBlanc formally nominated Ignatieff in speeches Saturday, continuing the Liberals’ “unity” theme at the convention.
“What an incredible team we are going to offer the country,” Ignatieff said, thanking his former rivals.
Despite impassioned speeches by former prime ministers Paul Martin and Jean Chretien, and a warm tribute to Dion, Ignatieff’s acclamation has left this year’s convention short on drama.
LeBlanc, who dropped out of the race to replace Dion when it appeared that Ignatieff had shored up party support, said Ignatieff’s leadership has united the Liberals.
“If we’d had a big, contested convention with a tight result and a lot of tension, then everybody would have said the Liberal party is divided, it’s going to be hard to unite the party, we’ll never be ready for an election,” LeBlanc told CTV’s Tom Clark Saturday during an interview on Newsnet.
“So you have a leader who is selected unanimously and who was — if we’re honest — the overwhelming choice of the grassroots of our party. That was clear in December.”
Before Ignatieff’s confirmation as leader, delegates passed a number of party initiatives, including a one-member, one-vote policy allowing party members to directly choose future leaders.
The new policy will allow members to cast a vote in their home province, essentially doing away with delegated leadership conventions.
“If (members) can vote directly for the leader in their riding or in regional meetings, I think it offers a much greater degree of participatory democracy,” LeBlanc said.
While Ignatieff will need to introduce a policy platform in advance of an election in order to shore up support among Canadian voters, he is already presiding over improving party fortunes.
Since Ignatieff took helm of the party last December, the Liberals have risen steadily in the polls.
A Strategic Counsel poll conducted in early April found the Liberals and Conservatives in a virtual tie for voter support, with the Grits at 34 per cent and the Conservatives at 32 per cent.
The findings marked a 10 percentage-point jump for the Liberals since Ignatieff took control of the reins.
And in Quebec, the Grits have pulled ahead of the Bloc Quebecois in the province for the first time in five years, with 37 per cent support, compared to 31 per cent for the Bloc.
The Conservatives, who were at 22 per cent support after last fall’s election, are well back at 15 per cent.
Despite the strong poll numbers, it’s too soon to tell if Ignatieff will use any forthcoming non-confidence votes in the House of Commons to bring down the Conservative minority government and force an election, said Liberal MP Bob Rae.
“You need three parties to defeat a government in this situation, so we’ll just have to see what happens,” Rae told Newsnet Saturday from Vancouver. “But the decision for the Liberals will not be made by anybody except our leader and he’ll be giving us that direction when the time comes.”
On Friday, the party paid tribute to Dion, setting aside the criticism often levied against him for failing to unite the party and instead focusing on his passion for the environment.
In a speech to delegates, Dion said he hoped the tribute could inspire the party to win the next election under Ignatieff.
