Michael Ignatieff

Michael Grant Ignatieff

Michael Ignatieff Michael Ignatieff
Riding	Etobicoke—Lakeshore
Political party:	Liberal
First elected:	2006 election
Profession(s):	Author, journalist, professor

Michael Grant Ignatieff, M.P., (born May 12, 1947 in Toronto) is a Canadian scholar, novelist and Liberal Member of Parliament in the Canadian House of Commons. He was elected on January 23 2006, representing the southwestern Toronto riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore. Ignatieff was named associate critic for Human Resources and Skills Development in the Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet on February 22 2006. However, he soon had to give up this position after announcing on April 7 2006 that he would stand as one of the Liberal Party of Canada Leadership Candidates.

Background

Ignatieff is the son of Canadian diplomat George Ignatieff and Alison Grant, and the grandson of Count Paul Ignatieff, who was the Tsar's last Minister of Education and one of the few Tsarist ministers who escaped execution by the Bolsheviks. His Canadian antecedents include his maternal great grandfather, George Monro Grant, the dynamic 19th century principal of Queen's University. His mother's younger brother was the political philosopher George Grant (1918-1988), author of Lament for a Nation. His great-grandfather was Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev, the Russian Minister of the Interior under Tsar Alexander III. In his book called The Russian Album, Ignatieff explores the importance of memory and obligation to ancestry in the context of his own family's history. Ignatieff is fluent in English and French, and has a basic knowledge of Russian, the native language of his father.

Michael Ignatieff studied history at the University of Toronto's Trinity College. There, he met fellow student (and future Premier of Ontario) Bob Rae, who became a longtime close friend. From 1964 to 1965, he worked as a journalist at The Globe and Mail newspaper. Ignatieff went on to complete his Ph.D in History at Harvard University in 1976, after which he taught at the University of British Columbia from 1976 to 1978. He held a Senior Research Fellowship at King's College, Cambridge from 1978 to 1984. Ignatieff lived in the United Kingdom through the mid 1990s.

While living in the United Kingdom, Ignatieff became well known as a broadcaster on radio and television. His best known television work was as presenter of 'Voices' on Channel 4, a BBC 2 discussion programme called "Thinking Aloud" and BBC 2's arts programme, The Late Show. In 1989 he presented a six part series for the BBC on the growing speed of contemporary culture, called "The Three Minute Culture." In the years that followed, the title of that series became a much used shorthand in Britain to describe the ephemeral nature of modern life. The November 11, 1998 issue of Publisher's Weekly, has the following description of him: "'I now feel rooted and happy in London, says Ignatieff, who nonetheless calls himself a Canadian writer — and a writer before a broadcaster." His documentary series Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism aired on BBC in 1993. He was also an editorial columnist for The Observer from 1990 to 1993.

Until 2005 he was Carr Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University and has seven honorary doctorates to his name. On August 26, 2005, it was announced that Ignatieff was leaving Harvard to become the Chancellor Jackman Visiting Professor in Human Rights Policy at the University of Toronto.

Michael Ignatieff is married to his second wife Hungarian-born Zsuzsanna Zsohar. He has two children from his first marriage to Susan Barrowclough, Theo and Sophie. The November 11,1998 Publisher's Weekly article said; "Ignatieff obliquely acknowledged the breakup of his own marriage some five years ago and the burden on his two children. 'One place I felt conflict between incommensurable moral values is in my own life.' Staying in a difficult marriage, he says, 'is misdescribed if it's simply seen as a conflict between selfishness and duty'."

Recognition

Ignatieff's memoir, The Russian Album, won the 1987 Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction and his text on Western interventionist policies and nation building called Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond won the Orwell Prize for political non-fiction in 2000.

In addition, his book on the dangers of ethnic nationalism in the Post-Cold war period Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism won the Gordon Montador Award for Best Canadian Book on Social Issues and the Lionel Gelber Award, which "honours the excellence of those who think and write about the local and global forces of change in international relations."

His respected scholarship on Middle Eastern and Balkan affairs and the challenges that ethnic conflict pose for human rights earned him the honour to deliver the prestigious Massey Lectures in 2000. More recently, Ignatieff has garnered considerable attention (much of it critical) for his attempts to reconcile the democratic ideals of western liberal societies to the often coercive nature of the war on terrorism.

Ignatieff also writes fiction; one of his novels, Scar Tissue, was short-listed for the Booker Prize.

Ideas

On Canadian rights culture

In The Rights Revolution,, Ignatieff discusses what he calls Canada's "distinctive" rights culture. For Ignatieff, Canada's progressive stance on multiculturalism and recognition of minority and group rights contributes to the uniqueness of Canada's secular liberal society:

"Canada has become one of the world’s most distinctive rights cultures. First, on moral questions such as abortion, capital punishment and gay rights, our legal codes are notably liberal, secular and pro-choice. In this, they approximate European standards more closely than American ones. Despite the fact that we share our way of life and our public media with our neighbours to the south, our habits of mind on rights questions are very much our own. Second, our culture is social democratic in its approach to rights to welfare and public assistance. Canadians take it for granted that citizens do have the right to free health care, as well as to unemployment insurance and publicly funded pensions. Again, the comparison with the republic to the south is noteworthy. The third distinguishing feature of our rights culture, of course, is our particular emphasis on group rights. This is expressed, first, in Quebec’s Charte de la language francaise (Bill 101) and, second, in the treaty agreements that have given land and resources to aboriginal groups. Apart from New Zealand, no other country has given such recognition to the idea of group rights."

On equality rights

Ignatieff also discusses the notion of "equality" at length in The Rights Revolution,.

"How do we generate a world in common? We take actual human individuals – rich, poor, young, old, homosexual, heterosexual, white, black, in between, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew (ie: human beings in all their embodied difference) – and we imagine them as equal bearers of rights... The entire legitimacy of public institutions depends on our being attentive to difference while treating all as equal. This is the gamble, the unique act of the imagination on which our society rests."

The Lesser Evil Approach

In addressing the threat of terrorism, Ignatieff argues that governments must take a "lesser evil" approach that finds a middle ground between adhering to the rule of law and sanctioning coercion. The central question is what "lesser evil" state measures are justifiable in a free and democratic society, and what steps do we take to prevent state abuse of such measures:

When democracies fight terrorism, they are defending the proposition that their political life should be free of violence. But defeating terror requires violence. It may also require coercion, secrecy, deception, even violation of rights. How can democracies resort to these means without destroying the values for which they stand? How can they resort to the lesser evil without succumbing to the greater?

Ignatieff says thinking about these "lesser evils is unavoidable", but sticking too firmly to the rule of law allows terrorists "too much leeway to exploit our freedoms." He thus attempts to balance citizens' rights to privacy and civil liberties against the state's need for surveillance to investigate terrorist activities. It is in the context this "lesser evil" analysis that Ignatieff discusses both coercive interrogation and torture.

Controversies

Doubts about his national self-identity

Critics of Ignatieff's involvement in Canadian politics, particularly his candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal party, have pointed out that Ignatieff had lived outside Canada for more than 30 years prior to returning to Canada to run for political office. During the 2006 election, Ignatieff told the Harvard Crimson, "If I am not elected, I imagine that I will ask Harvard to let me back," where he would teach in "some shape or form."[1] However, Ignatieff later clarified these comments, saying if he lost he would "continue teaching at the University of Toronto" and would return to Harvard "in the future, only when his political career ends."[2].

Ignatieff has also come under fire for writing essays and op-eds from the perspective of an American, and, when writing for The Observer in the early 1990s, as an Englishman. For example, in a New York Times Magazine article discussing his "Lesser Evil" approach to fighting terrorism, Ignatieff used "we" and "us" over 100 times throughout the article in reference to America. [3]. Also when addressing the graduating class of Whitman College in May 2004, Ignatieff took the point of view of an American, speaking of "our Constitution." He told the class that "Being an American is not easy...We are judged by a high standard, one we crafted for ourselves in the founding documents of the republic."[4]

Ignatieff also wrote an article in 2002 for the literary magazine, Granta, titled "What we think of America" in which he said; "[America is the] only country...to command the faith of people like me, who are not its citizens." He also said: "I'm a Canadian, but it was inevitable that the great cause of my growing up was an American war, not a Canadian wrong. I loved my own country, but I believed in [America] in a way that Canada never allowed. I was against the [Vietnam] war because I thought it betrayed something essential about America" and "I marched because I believed in Jefferson and Lincoln."

Ignatieff was questioned about his close identification with America by Peter Newman- who had originally suggested Ignatieff has the next Canadian Prime Minster - in a Macleans's interview published on April 6 2006. Ignatieff apologised for refering to himself as an American: "I'm not and have never been and will never be an American citizen, so I shouldn't have done that. Sometimes you want to increase your influence over your audience by appropriating their voice, but it was a mistake. Every single one of the students from 85 countries who took my courses at Harvard knew one thing about me: I was that funny Canadian." As a result of this controversy, Ignatieff's detractors have been heard chanting "American! American!" at some riding meetings.

Ignatieff similarly identified himself as British during his years living in that country, especially in an article where he mourns the loss of Princess Diana. http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7172

Invasion of Iraq

Ignatieff was a prominent supporter of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, a position which he acknowledged was controversial in progressive circles. In an article entitled "The Burden," Ignatieff outlined several reasons for the invasion, including his belief that Iraq had "continued development" of weapons of mass destruction and his desire to liberate the Kurds and Shia from oppression. More controversial, however, was his linking of the invasion to the September 11 terrorist attacks, and his advocacy of a "21st century" imperialism where America must "take on the risks of empire," establishing "an empire lite, a global hegemony whose grace notes are free markets, human rights and democracy, enforced by the most awesome military power the world has ever known."

In the years following the invasion, Ignatieff has reiterated his support for the war's aims, if not the method in which it was conducted. He states that "I supported an administration whose intentions I didn't trust, believing that the consequences would repay the gamble. Now I realize that intentions do shape consequences." Nonetheless, he has continued to support intervention, stressing "what Saddam Hussein had done to the Kurds and the Shia" , in particular referring to his visit to the site of the infamous Halabja poison gas attack in 1992.

Ballistic missile defense

Ignatieff is a strong advocate for the construction of a ground-based North American Missile Defence Shield. In his book "Virtual War," Ignatieff wrote: "America will become more vulnerable to attack. In response it will have to develop missile defense systems to protect the continental United States."

In a speech to the 2005 biennial Liberal policy conference, Ignatieff generated controversy by suggesting that while opposition to the proposed Canada-U.S. North American Missile Defense Shield was a popular position within the party, "we need to balance a principled opposition to the future weaponization of space with an equally principled commitment to participate in North American defence right now. We don't want our decisions to fracture the command system of North American defence."

Torture

Ignatieff has written extensively about whether modern states should permit torture. His position is highly nuanced and has generated significant controversy.

In his works, Ignatieff attempts to draw a distinction between "torture" and "coercive interrogation." His definition of torture includes "physical coercion or abuse, any involuntary use of drugs and the deprivation of basic food, water, medicine and rest necessary for survival." Ignatieff's definition of coercion includes "forms of sleep deprivation that do not result in lasting harm to mental or physical health, together with disinformation and disorientation (like keeping prisoners in hoods) that would produce stress". He leaves significant ambiguity about under which category he considers practices such as forced nudity, sexual humiliation, mock executions, use of threats of violence against a person or family members, use of dogs, and non-fatal sleep deprivation. Some have observed that Ignatieff's definition of torture is much more narrow than traditionally accepted definitions of torture (see also Istanbul Protocol, Psychology of torture), and he has been accused of trying to restrict the definition of torture in ways akin to those of the Bush administration.

Ignatieff's writings weigh the potential advantages of a "lesser evil" approach to torture -- using it to help prevent terrorist attacks -- against the potentially corrosive effect of torture on society. Though he sees some merit in coercive interrogation, he ultimately concludes that he supports "an absolute and unconditional ban on both torture and those forms of coercive interrogation that involve stress and duress." However, his use of the words "absolute and unconditional" must be carefully parsed, since he also writes that "there is the problem of the exceptional case" where authorities may judge torture to be necessary to save lives. In order to accommodate such cases, Ignatieff proposes that a "defense of necessity" be included in any anti-torture law.

Citing the "lesser evil" approach, Conor Gearty, professor of human rights law at the London School of Economics, accused Ignatieff and other liberal intellectuals of giving United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "the intellectual tools with which to justify his government's expansionism" and creating an atmosphere in which torture ordered by the US government might be condoned. Gearty also said that Ignatieff is "probably the most important figure to fall into this category of hand-wringing apologists for human rights abuses." Similarly, Mariano Aguirre, co-director of the Fundacion para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Dialogo Exterior (Fride) in Madrid wrote a prominent condemnation of Ignatieff's views, stating that he "mixes history and propaganda" by ignoring historical precedents regarding US government human rights abuses.

Political career

Michael Ignatieff speaking to citizens in the riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore, at Assembly Hall in Etobicoke, 18 January 2006.

In January 2005, journalist/biographer Peter C. Newman suggested that Ignatieff could be an ideal leadership candidate for the governing Liberal Party of Canada after Paul Martin retired as leader, which he did in his concession speech after the election on January 23 2006. Ignatieff was the keynote speaker at the Liberal Party's national biennial convention in Ottawa in early March 2005.

Nomination

After months of rumours and repeated denials, Ignatieff confirmed in November 2005 that he intended to run for a seat in the Canadian House of Commons in the winter 2006 election. After much speculation in the media as to which riding would be chosen for Ignatieff's candidacy, it was announced that Ignatieff would seek the Liberal nomination in the Toronto riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore. Ignatieff was considered a star candidate by the media.

Jean Augustine, the former representative, was a well-liked, long-serving MP, and the first Black woman elected to the House of Commons. Some viewed Ignatieff's nomination in her riding as hasty, but Augustine supported Ignatieff's candidacy, stumping for him on the campaign trail and lending her volunteers.

Two other candidates filed for the nomination but were disqualified (one, because he was not a member of the party and the second because he had failed to resign from his position on the riding association executive). The two would-be candidates filed appeals of their disqualifications, which they later dropped. They also appealled Ignatieff's acclamation, but without success. They claimed that, although they were able to complete their paperwork within the slight 36 hours allowed them, the office staff at the headquarters refused to let them in or answer the phones when they tried to file their candidate forms.

Additionally, some Ukrainian-Canadian members of the riding association complained that the party establishment was trying to help Ignatieff at the expense of other potential candidates. Some members of this community resented remarks Ignatieff made in his 1993 book Blood and Belonging : Journeys into the New Nationalism, in which he wrote:

"I have reasons to take the Ukraine seriously indeed. But, to be honest, I'm having trouble. Ukrainian independence conjures up images of peasant embroidered shirts, the nasal whine of ethnic instruments, phony Cossacks in cloaks and boots..."

Some critics have taken this statement as being anti-Ukrainian. Ignatieff supporters, however, maintain that the above quote was taken out of context, from a chapter in which Ignatieff claims to argue against such stereotypes.

Angry Ukrainians and peace activists picketed Ignatieff's acclamation meeting, prompting key organizer Alf Apps to send out a panicked email urging Liberal supporters to stack the meeting with their friends, even if some of the attendees were not party members, or lived outside the riding. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=4d267df0-5467-48a6-9f7a-38f139440d77&k=61138

Victory

Despite any controversy, Michael Ignatieff was able to defeat the Conservative candidate and win a seat in the Canadian House of Commons during the 2006 Canadian federal election by a margin of roughly 5,000 votes.

Leadership bid

When Ignatieff decided to run for the Liberal Party in the Ontario riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, there was speculation as to whether he would seek the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. At the time, Ignatieff refused to entertain the speculation, expressing unqualified support for Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin and stated, "this is the job, to be a good constituency MP in Etobicoke Lakeshore" [5]. (To view clip, click on Thursday January 12th, "Election: George Chats with Michael Ignatieff, Liberal Party candidate.")

However, Martin resigned from the Liberal leadership following the government's defeat in federal election in January, 2006. On April 7 2006, Michael Ignatieff announced his candidacy in the upcoming Liberal leadership race, joining several other candidates who had already announced their candidacy.

Before announcing his candidacy, Ignatieff gave a speech on March 30 2006, to a packed room at the University of Ottawa entitled "Canada and the World". In it, Ignatieff outlined his vision for Canada, including, among other things, his views on citizenship, foreign policy, federal-provincial relations, and the environment. Some protesters attended the event, wearing hoods and orange jumpsuits, similar to those of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib detainees, holding signs alleging Ignatieff supports torture. Ignatieff acknowledged their presence and right to protest, but denied their claims in his speech.

When taking questions from the audience following the speech, Ignatieff refused comparisons to Pierre Trudeau, indicating that while he admired Trudeau, Sir Wilfrid Laurier was his political hero. Ignatieff said he wished to strengthen national unity by inspiring commitment to civic values and the indivisibility of Canadian citizenship.

Senator David Smith, a powerful Chrétien organizer, Ian Davey (son of Senator Keith Davey), Alfred Apps, a Toronto lawyer and fundraiser and Paul Lalonde a Toronto lawyer and son of Marc Lalonde, are heading up his campaign.

David Peterson will be Ignatieff's honorary campaign co-chair along with former Trudeau cabinet minister Marc Lalonde. Jim Peterson will serve as Ignatieff's Ontario campaign co-chair with Aileen Carroll. Rodger Cuzner will be the Atlantic Canada campaign chair while Pablo Rodriguez, former president of the Liberal Party's federal Quebec wing, will be Quebec campaign chair. and fromer Minister Denis Coderre will be National Campaign Co-chair, together with M.P. Ruby Dhalla.

He is also supported by MPs John McCallum, Susan Kadis, Derek Lee, John MacKay, Robert Thibault, Raymond Simard, Paul Zed, Raymonde Folco, Marcel Proulx, Stephen Owen, Paul Szabo, Lloyd St. Amand, Roger Valley,Stephen Owen, Wayne Easter, Mauril Belanger, Albina Guarnieri, John Moloney, Keith Martin and John Cannis.

Extension of Canada's Afghanistan mission

Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, called a vote in the House of Commons for May 17, 2006 on extending the Canadian Forces current deployment in Afghanistan until February 2009. Due to the suddenness of the vote's announcement (opposition parties had only 36 hours to prepare), the vote was criticized by many MPs, including Ignatieff.

The Liberal caucus of 102 MPs was divided with 24 MPs supporting the extension, 66 voting against, and 12 abstentions. Among Liberal leadership candidates, Ignatieff and Scott Brison, voted for the extension. Ignatieff led the largest Liberal contingent of votes in favour, with at least five of his caucus supporters voting along with him to extend the mission.

During the debate in the House of Commons, Ignatieff said "I express unequivocal support for the troops in Afghanistan, for the mission, and also for the renewal of the mission," later arguing that "it is the moment when we have to test the shift from one paradigm, the peacekeeping paradigm to the peace-enforcement paradigm that combines military, reconstruction and humanitarian efforts together." In a subsequent campaign appearance, Ignatieff reiterated his view, stating "the thing that Canadians have to understand about Afghanistan is that we are well past the era of Pearsonian peacekeeping."

Media tidbits

According to Jane Taber of The Globe and Mail:

Late last spring (2005), André Boisclair, now the Parti Québécois Leader, graduated from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where Michael Ignatieff was teaching. As Mr. Boisclair was coming off the stage with his diploma, Dr. Ignatieff was there to shake his hand. "So are you going home?" Dr. Ignatieff asked the Quebec sovereignist. (Former PQ leader Bernard Landry had just surprised everyone by announcing his resignation.) "I think so. Will I meet you there?" asked Mr. Boisclair, who served as a minister in PQ governments. Said Dr. Ignatieff, "We'll see."

Bibliography

Fiction

• Asya, 1991
• Scar Tissue, 1993
• Charlie Johnson in the Flames, 2005

Non-Fiction

• A Just Measure of Pain: Penitentiaries in the Industrial Revolution, 1780-1850, 1978
• The Needs of Strangers, 1984
• The Russian Album, 1987 (winner of the 1987 Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction)
• Blood and Belonging: Journeys Into the New Nationalism, 1994
• Warrior's Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience, 1997
• Isaiah Berlin: A Life, 1998
• Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond, 2000
• The Rights Revolution, 2000
• Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, 2001
• Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, 2003
• The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror, 2004
• American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (ed.), 2005

External links

Official sites

• Michael Ignatieff Leadership Campaign Website
• Official Website of Michael Ignatieff, Etobicoke-Lakeshore
• Federal Political Biography from the Library of Parliament

Articles

• The Burden by Ignatieff just prior to the Iraq war, explaining his support for the invasion
• The Year of Living Dangerously by Ignatieff. A follow-up article discussing the war.
• Why Bush must send in his troops by Ignatieff, on why he believes imposing a two-state solution is the last chance for Middle East peace. Published in The Guardian, April 19 2002
• Michael Ignatieff. The Lesser Evil, transcript of remarks at Carnegie Council , Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, January 23 2004.
• Michael Ignatieff. Lesser Evils, New York Times Magazine, May 2 2004.
• A General Helping of Liberal Brains by Ignatieff, including an enunciation of his position on ballistic missile defense
• Alex Mazer. Ignatieff's Realm
• Getting a read on Michael Ignatieff Toronto Star, May 1 2006.
• Ignatieff, torture and us New Humanist, 11 April 2006.
• But where's the context? Toronto Star, April 9 2006.
• No more Mr Nice Guy New Humanist September 21 2005.
• Ignatieff article on Diana Spencer

Opponent sites

• Stop Iggy A site established by dissenting Liberals to outline why they disagree with his candidacy.
• Canada asks Ignatieff: Are you one of us? An article by the U.K. Telegraph summarizing the criticisms levied at Ignatieff.