Ignatieff's highwire Quebec act

[capricorn]

About 500 Liberals will convene Sunday in Quebec City for the biennial convention of the party's Quebec wing. Only a few months ago, it would have been an occasion to celebrate the party's resurgence in Quebec under Ignatieff, the former Harvard academic who initially impressed Quebecers with his worldliness and pliant view of federalism.

Now, he will do well to control the damage from the most serious test of his leadership since he took over from Stephane Dion last December.

"Liberal supporters going to the convention are going to want to know, 'Who's in charge? Who's the chief organizer? When we need to talk to somebody, who do we talk to?' " former Liberal cabinet minister-turned-pundit Jean Lapierre said this week. "These are questions that Mr. Ignatieff will have to answer between now and Sunday."

http://www.canada.com/news/Ignatieff+heads...0563/story.html

Ignatieff is in an unenviable position. In Quebec City this weekend, he will want to invigorate the troops. He will want to vaunt the accomplishments of his Quebec stalwarts in order to push them to do more, to donate more. Can he accomplish this without extolling the accomplishments of his chief organizer in Quebec, Denis Coderre? After all, his Quebec ex-lieutenant has worked fervently to line up 68 candidates to run in Quebec's 75 ridings. One would think Coderre is deserving of his leader's accolades. But Coderre fell from grace when he accused the Liberal party of running Quebec's affairs from Toronto.

Had Coderre not voluntarily resigned from the Quebec lieutenant's job and defence critic, Ignatieff could have imposed those sanctions himself to assert his leadership. We'll never know what Ignatieff would have done in the face of Coderre's affront to Ignatieff's handling of Quebec's political realities. Now, all that is opened to Ignatieff is booting him from caucus and it is now reported this will not happen. So Coderre gets off without reprimand. The message will be, there is no consequence to straying from the fold. Consider Gordon Landon, who was turfed as the Conservative candidate for Markham-Unionville after publicly musing a GTA riding was being shut out of federal infrastructure funding because it is held by a Liberal. No ifs, ands or buts. In politics, action must be swift and unequivocal.

Ignatieff only has so many kicks at the can to assert his leadership. It's a mistake not to boot Coderre out of the Liberal party.

[punked]

Coderre saw the inside polling numbers in Quebec and jumped that sinking ship as fast as he could. I am sure of it, it has a lot less to do with Iggy then it does to do with him being linked to a worse result then Dion.

[August1991]

Coderre saw the inside polling numbers in Quebec and jumped that sinking ship as fast as he could. I am sure of it, it has a lot less to do with Iggy then it does to do with him being linked to a worse result then Dion.

Coderre made a decision about the Outremont riding, and Ignatieff publicly repudiated that decision. Coderre had no choice but to resign. He could have resigned differently but that's Denis Coderre.

This hurts Ignatieff in Quebec because people don't know him and now the first thing they learn is that he is not loyal to a Quebecer.

-----

As much as I don't like the term "lieutenant", a federal leader cannot operate without strong regional directors - particularly in Quebec. Trudeau relied on Jean Marchand and Marc Lalonde; Chretien had Jean Pelletier. Mulroney arguably worked without a lieutenant (such was Mulroney's personality - an inveterate gossip) but even he had people like Benoit Bouchard or Luc Lavoie.

It is unthinkable that Ignatieff, without any ties to Quebec despite how many times he repeats that his parents are buried in the Eastern Townships, can run the federal Liberal organisation in Quebec from his own office.

The Liberals' problem in Quebec go well beyond Denis Coderre. They are a rump in the West Island and a few other Montreal ridings with large allophone populations. The Conservatives have stronger ties to French Quebec than the Liberals do.

Moreover, just as they lost Outremont to the NDP, they might lose some other high profile ridings. I have not heard anything from Irwin Cotler in all this. Rather, Cotler - like Harper - has forcefully and openly opposed the Iranian regime.

If I were Harper, I would let it be known that there's some comfy fur on the other side of the House.

Edited October 3, 2009 by August1991

[punked]

No way if the Quebec numbers were good Denis Coderre would never have jumped ship but the newest Crop poll puts them on a downward spiral. Iggy's right wing agenda does not play well there Quebec already has a party for that it is called the Conservatives and they don't like them much either. So Denis saw the writing on the wall, saw a way to untie himself to BIG loss and jumped ship I am sure of it.

[waldo]

There have never been problems in Quebec or with Quebec. I still have confidence in Michael Ignatieff and am happy that he has said Quebec concerns will be settled between him and Quebec (party) authorities.

[capricorn]

"There have never been problems in Quebec or with Quebec. I still have confidence in Michael Ignatieff and am happy that he has said Quebec concerns will be settled between him and Quebec (party) authorities."

An internal feud that has hammered the Liberals and jeopardized gains the new leader has made shows that the party needs to inject more democracy at the grassroots level, its members say.

“It’s an internal power struggle, but the solution is not to divest in one [leader] and invest in the other, it’s to open the party up,” said former Liberal deputy prime minister Sheila Copps.

“Why do we need to appoint people who think it is their God-given right to give out political appointments?” she asked.

Behind the scenes, Liberals are saying MP Denis Coderre’s resignation as Quebec lieutenant Monday proves how out of touch and top-down the party has become.

“There is absolutely no reason why the Quebec wing of the party should have a lieutenant that cherry picks candidates. People should chose,” said one Liberal MP from outside Quebec.

“The leader should have no say.”

----

“What happened in Outremont is indicative of a much larger problem — that members of the party have once again had their right (to select their own candidates) taken away from them,” said former Liberal national director Sheila Gervais.

Every riding association should have an open nomination meeting and Liberal members should chose their candidate, said Harry Keilly, the Liberal riding association president in Malpeque, P.E.I. Without a fair contest, disputes aren’t resolved, members don’t feel they’ve had their say and are less willing to donate or door-knock, he said.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/canada/200...260271-sun.html

Coderre has blinders on or he is trying to salvage his standing in the Liberal party. The situation in Quebec is symptomatic of what permeates throughout the party today and it stems from the top. The back room boys foisted Ignatieff on party partisans and supporters. They won't take this lack of democratic process lying down.

[Mr.Canada]

Ignatieff doesn't have the backbone needed to make the tough decisions. He's proven that over and over again. I don't know if it's his own inexperience in politics or if he's getting bad advice altogether. Whatever the case I'm sure he reads the newspapers and follows the polls so I cannot understand why he doesn't heed what is in those pages and included in those polls.

His numbers are dropping in Ontario and Quebec, he's given Harper a 14 point lead over him in Ontario and given up ground to him in Quebec yet he continues down the same path thayt led the Liberals to this state of affairs. I don't get it. Is the man this inept or is he that arrogant that he refuses to accept reality?

[August1991]

No way if the Quebec numbers were good Denis Coderre would never have jumped ship but the newest Crop poll puts them on a downward spiral. Iggy's right wing agenda does not play well there Quebec already has a party for that it is called the Conservatives and they don't like them much either. So Denis saw the writing on the wall, saw a way to untie himself to BIG loss and jumped ship I am sure of it.

I think you're wrong. Are Quebecers leftist? (Are they rejecting Ignatief's right wing agenda, as you put it.) I don't think so.

Punked, you wrongly believe that people in Quebec are left. When push comes to shove in federal politics, they are neither left-wing or right wing - they are Quebecers. The same can be said about Newfoundlanders and other English Canadians. Faced with Americans, how do most Ontarians feel?

Regionalism, not ideology, dominates Canadian federal politics. I happen to believe that Canada works best when people are not forced to choose between Canada and their country.

With that said, I would love to see Canadian federal politics divided on ideological lines but for that to happen, Canada would require politicians with the fluency of Trudeau. For example, I would love to see a federal politician take on Duceppe. Martin and Chretien were weak opponents.

Maybe in the future.

Edited October 4, 2009 by August1991

[jdobbin]

Ignatieff only has so many kicks at the can to assert his leadership. It's a mistake not to boot Coderre out of the Liberal party.

Given what I have seen of Coderre in the last days, he has tried to reach out to address unity.

[munsinger]

Denis Coderre is simply a selfcentered, muckraking, egotistical grubby ward heeler....with serious delusions of grandeur. The Wizard of Ig made his first mistake, by putting this guy in charge in Quebec. The second mistake was not just opening the nomination process, when the issue first surfaced. The third mistake, was the flip flop, after publicly supporting Coderre.

Now the Count is keeping Coderre in the caucus, who is in a position to create great mischief (ties to the 63 Lib candidates in the province)....and given Denis's track record.....the mischief will happen, eventually. Interesting, that when the plan to shelve 4 more sitting MPs, including Dion, became public.....not the slightest peep from Ignatieff. Perhaps getting rid of Cauchon AND Dion in one fell swop, had a certain amount of appeal for the Self Anointed One.....although looking around the blogsphere - the left wing of the Liberal party, may have figured this out already.

But then Iggy can always take some definitive action.....and put Coderre on "probation" with quarterly report cards to boot.

[punked]

He didn't show today.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/politicalbyt...no_problem.html

[Mr.Canada]

Ignatiefff is screwed to put it bluntly. Coderre should be booted but if he does Ignatieff will have sunk the Liberals in Quebec for sure, they'll drop like a rock. If he does nothing he'll be looked at as weak and will drop in the polls everywhere else but especially in Ontario. If he steps down PM Harper will engineer his own defeat and the Liberals will go to the polls without a leader or a policy...Where does he have more to lose?

[Keepitsimple]

First he said that he was going to look after Quebec himself (dumb)....but now he says he'll appoint another Lieutenant. And here's another quote that continues to show that this man thinks he's the center of the universe. He doesn't have a party - everything is "I", "I" and "Me".

And he reversed his earlier decision not to name a new Quebec lieutenant, to replace Denis Coderre.

"It is up to me to decide," he said. "I will decide at the appropriate moment."

Link: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2065386