news Ignatieff thanks Harper for Liberal resurgence

[rwilli1]

Ignatieff thanks Harper for Liberal resurgence


Thu Apr 30, 7:33 PM





By Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press


VANCOUVER, B.C. - Michael Ignatieff is crediting Prime Minister Stephen Harper for putting the once-mighty Liberals back on the road to power.

Kicking off a Liberal convention that will formally acclaim him as leader, Ignatieff said he owes his uncontested coronation, the party's newfound unity and its improved fundraising results to Harper's ill-judged political machinations last fall.

"We have a unified party, we have a party out of debt and we have a party basically ready to fight an election," Ignatieff told reporters Thursday.

"And, again, who would have thunk it? Who would've thought that this would be the result. And some of the credit, ironically enough, has to go to my chief adversary, Mr. Stephen Harper."

Harper's minority Conservative government sparked a parliamentary crisis last fall when it used a fiscal update to try to financially hobble opposition parties, while doing little to acknowledge the economic crisis engulfing the country.

That prompted the three opposition parties to band together in a bid to form a coalition government. And that in turn prompted Liberals to jettison their time-consuming, divisive process for choosing a leader to replace Stephane Dion, who had led them to one of their worst-ever electoral showings only two months earlier.

That process was to have culminated in a leadership vote Saturday at the convention.

Instead of a bruising, five-month leadership contest that likely would have exacerbated rifts in the party, Ignatieff's rivals - Bob Rae and Dominic LeBlanc - stepped aside and allowed him to be hastily installed as interim leader in December.

Since then, the Liberal party's fortunes have steadily improved.

Polls suggest Liberals have edged ahead of the Tories in national support. Moreover, the party raked in $1.8 million in the first quarter of 2009 - more than double the result during the same period last year, although still well behind the cash-hoovering Tory machine.

"I think when we run back, we'll see that Mr. Harper dislodged a little snowball that rolled down a hill and it suddenly turned into an avalanche," said Ignatieff, while also wishing Harper a happy 50th birthday Thursday.

Still, it's premature to predict the Tories will be buried in a Liberal landslide. Ignatieff acknowledged that the party still has a long way to go to make it out of the political wilderness, particularly on the fundraising front and on reinvigorating the party's disengaged membership.

"I've got to get the message right, you've got to get me the members and then we've got to get the vote out," he said in a brief speech to riding presidents.

"You know the challenge that we face. It's the number you all know and it's the most disturbing number we have to turn around: 800,000 Liberals stayed home last time."

Ignatieff exhorted Liberals to adopt a 308-riding strategy, reaching out to potential supporters, signing up members and seeking donations in every riding in every region of the country.

"We don't give ground to anybody. We don't concede any riding in the country to anybody. That's the rule."

Ignatieff is under considerable pressure from pundits and editorial writers, who are calling on him to use the convention to start spelling out some of the details of his vision for the country. But Ignatieff signalled that he sees the convention as more of a nuts and bolts endeavour to tune up the rusty Liberal electoral machine.

"They say, absurdly, this is a convention about nothing. They say, absurdly, we've got nothing to do here," he told riding presidents.

"We are rebuilding the greatest national institution in Canadian life."

Ignatieff later insisted he's shown "no reluctance" to commit to some specific policies, such as a national child care program or a national standard for Employment Insurance. Still, he suggested that more detailed platform planks will have to wait until closer to an election.

Ignatieff was joined at the meeting with riding presidents by former party leader John Turner, who led the Liberals to defeat in the 1984 and 1988 elections.

Turner, who appears to revel in his status as something of an old curmudgeon, didn't mince words. He bluntly asserted that Liberal candidates in every riding should be elected in open nominations, not appointed by the leader, and that MPs should be allowed free votes on all but budget bills and throne speeches.

"Make sure it happens . . . . Democracy doesn't happen by accident. You've got to make it happen, all right?"

Ignatieff has already told incumbent MPs that they'll be spared nomination challenges if they meet certain fundraising and membership requirements. And he refused Thursday to rule out using his power to appoint candidates in ridings not currently held by the Liberals.