Choking Off Disagreement | Michael Ignatieff during a speech hosted by the Institute for United States Policy at the University of Alberta.
The confrontation between federal Conservatives and Liberals at Michael Ignatieff’s speech last Friday at the University of Alberta amounted to nothing more than a bunch of hot e-mails.
Some political junkies were expecting to see a row between Ignatieff, deputy Liberal leader and MP for Etobicoke Lakeshore, and members of the federal Conservative party. Vitor Marciano, a member of the Conservative national council, sent out a rallying cry to party members a week before the event, asking members to attend the lecture to challenge Ignatieff’s stance on the Afghan mission.
Ignatieff has been widely criticized from both the right and the left for flipflopping on Afghanistan and Iraq. While he was a human rights professor at Harvard, he was a vocal supporter of the war in Iraq. But during his run for the Liberal leadership, he backed away from those views. He continued to support Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, but also promised to tour Afghanistan to get a better feel for that conflict.
When Ignatieff heard of Marciano’s call, he promised that his speech would be non-partisan, and he stuck to that vow. He refrained from both campaigning for the Liberals and calling out potential rabble rousers.
In his speech, Ignatieff said Canada must accept its departure from the role of peacekeeper, and embrace the fact that Afghanistan is a combat mission for a good reason.
Seventy-eight Canadian soldiers have been killed during the mission in Afghanistan, and Ignatieff feels that number would be higher if Canada had taken on a peacekeeping role in the region instead. “You can’t protect people with blue berets and a sidearm,” Ignatieff said. “You’ve got to have bulked-up capabilities. You’ve got to go in there with flak jackets, you’ve got to have armour.”
The Conservatives in the room found little to argue with.
Ignatieff argued that Canada needs to start flexing its international muscle through strong participation in the international scene, citing the Middle East as a good place for us to start throwing our weight around. He specifically suggested Canada start by convincing the Pakistani government to turn off water supplies to the Taliban.
Ultimately, Ignatieff feels that the Afghan mission is Canada’s first step in confronting what he calls the biggest challenge of the 21st century. “The challenge of the 21st century is political stability,” he said, “making sure that countries are well enough governed that they don’t blow themselves up.”
