Michael Ignatieff: The QMI Interview

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff conducted a round of year-end interviews with various media organizations at the end of last week. Today, we run a feature across our chain (left) based on our interview with him. Here's an edited version (by me) of the transcript  of that interview, which took place in Stornoway, his official Ottawa residence, on Dec. 16. (I have paraphrased my questions)

Q: Has the country shifted? Is Liberalism dead?

“I don’t think so. The key enduring fact is that broad base of the Canadian middle class, the middle class family, depends as much as it ever did for its standard of living on health service you can rely on, public pensions, public help for post-secondary education and child care. Liberalism has always understood that. The engine room of the Canadian economy, the engine room of this society depends on having what you’d call public goods. Health care, pensions, education. And that’s as relevant as ever.

That broad base of the middle class has to be reassured that government can deliver that kind of granite under their feet without crushing them with taxes. When they feel that they’re paying more and getting less in terms of just grinding – when that granite under their feet feels like it’s cracking and when it feels like it’s costing more and they’re getting less, then you get Rob Ford. You get a movement …

Liberals have always understood – the reason the Liberal Party’s been so successful politically, is we’ve understood, that’s what we’re in politics to do, to create that ground under people’s feet and to do it in a way that doesn’t crush people with high taxes. And that’s been the bargain and that’s why we were the governing party for so long. You look across the western world, that’s what keeps liberal kinds of parties in business, that basic thing.

And we just have to do a really good job telling Canadians that’s what we’re here to do. And I think it’s true that sometimes we’ve strayed from message. I think sometimes we’ve chased after other priorities. I think sometimes we’ve allowed ourselves to be driven by other people’s ideologies but if you come right back to the wheelhouse where we are, it’s we’re the party of the broad-based middle-class family. And for me, this is not an abstraction. I’ve fought two elections in a place called Etobicoke. And that middle class family I know well. They voted for me twice. They live in three-bedroom brick bungalows built in the sixties and seventies. They’ve got a car in the garage but they don’t have three. They want to send their kids to post-secondary (school). They want to be sure they’ve got a retirement they can count on. That’s the engine room not only of our party but also of the Canadian economy. We just have to say to them over and over again: We know what you’re going through and we’re with you the whole way and they don’t want big government, they don’t want fancy government, they don’t want expensive government, they don’t want wasteful government but their standard of living absolutely depends on healthcare, pensions .. and we have to deliver for them.

And I think the weakness for the Conservatives, their message … The thing about the Conservative Party is its fundamentally a message of protest. It fundamentally says let’s get government off your back and cut your taxes. And it’s credible only so long as government doesn’t deliver up to the promise. But if you have government that delivers responsible moderate down-the-middle  of the pike programs that create that granite under people’s feet, then the protest just looks kind of cranky, right? Harper loves power but he doesn’t like government. Harper doesn’t believe what I believe. Harper doesn’t believe that the ground of that middle class standard of living is those public goods. Basically what he’s said to the Canadian public for four years is: ‘government can’t do very much for you. All we can do is cut your taxes and that’s it.’ And we’re saying, no, no, there is a better choice. We can deliver those services in a responsible way without increasing your tax burden. We can do it.

He’s the guy with the $56 billion deficit, not us. Mulroney was the guy with the $43 billion deficit, not us. So we don’t have to walk around proving to the middle class we can do this. We’ve proved it twice. And we will prove it again.

I then followed up on his reference to Rob Ford, the new mayor of Toronot. Don't have the full transcription handy. But you can read the story I wrote based on this section of the interview or you can listen to the tape. [MP3]

Q: What about the West? Does Naheed Nenshi’s victory there suggest that small-l liberalism at least might be taking root?

“I think medium-term – I won’t pretend short-term – Western Canada is looking a lot like places where the Liberal Party has traditionally brought on huge amounts of support. Everybody can see it. I can see it Edmonton. I can see it Calgary. Hey, we just won a seat west of [Lake] Superior so I’m feeling … well, one swallow doesn’t make a spring, … but we’ve made some progress. And anyone who goes to Edmonton right now knows that there is a very proud municipal community that is steaming mad at the Harper government because Rona Ambrose and the Conseratives took them for granted, green-lighted an Expo bid and then cut ‘em off at the pass. And you can only get away with that kind of nonsense if you think own the whole board, if you don’t care what they think.

So what’s the net of that? I think there are possibilities for us in Western Canada but I’m not in dreamland. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

These messages out West are important. We want to say, you deserve better than this. You deserve someone who doesn’t take you for granted. I’ve said to this party since I became leader, I don’t believe in a red state/blue state kind of thing and we’ve gotta get out there [though] it’ll take a while.

Q. What about Quebec?

“I think what we have to say is really simple: We have to say, you Quebecers are fed up with Stephen Harper. This government does not respond to your values. This government does not understand you. If you want to get rid of Stephen Harper, you’ve got to vote for the Liberals. If you vote Duceppe, you will get Harper. If you vote Layton, you will get Harper. If you vote Elizabeth May, you will get Harper. The target is not actually the Bloc, the target is actually Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper is unpopular in Quebec. Stephen Harper’s gamble in Quebec has not succeeded. But if you keep voting for Gilles Duceppe you will get four more years of a government that doesn’t understand you. You’ve now got a chance to vote to get a federal government in Ottawa that respects a women’s right to choose; must preserve the gun registry; wants to preserve the long-form census; actually believes in regional economic development; actually believes in action on climate change with the provinces. You line it up, we’re in the right place. Christ knows we’ve got a lot of work to do. But I do know that’s what you want to say. And I want to see, finally, if you’re out on the ground in Quebec, in small towns, municipal officials come up to you on the quiet all the time and say, we’ve voted for those guys for 18 years. What the hell did they do for my community? If I’ve heard that once I’ve heard it a hundred times. Well, sooner or later, that begins to translate into votes.

Q: In 2009 “Mr. Harper, your time is up” was a mistake. 2010 seemed relatively gaffe-free. Was there anything you regret?

You don’t go through a day without making a mistake. It’s not the mistakes that you make, it’s recoveries you make that really count in this game. I actually don’t think there’s some glaring error that I went through this year.

I think we can truthfully say there wasn’t a poltical party in this country that worked harder than we did in 2010. I just really think – when you look at the prorogation rallies, the Montreal conference, the summer tour, Open Mikes, enormous amount of policy work – which is all below the water line but you will see in the new year – I feel very good about that. It’s the ensemble of just a lot of hard work. I think we maintained the unity of the party and the unity of caucus and that, in the Liberal Party, is …[smiles]. So there’s a lot.

Q. What's the secret to caucus unity and discipline?

They want to win. It’s just that simple. The key thing is what’s in them. And they want to win. They don’t like being in opposition. We’re a party that’s governed the country. We’re not like the Bloc or the NDP who think this is dying and going to heaven. We think this is purgatory and we want to get back to the business of governing the country and we know the only way we can do that is if we’re united.”