Iggy, can you hear me?
May 6th, 2009 Andrew CashLib’s new king might grant you an audience, but you won’t change his manifesto
By Andrew Cash
While Michael Ignatieff has certainly given the Libs a bump in the polls and the party bank account, his coronation last weekend in Vancouver underlines some sad facts about the state of political participation these days.
If the grassroots of the party showed some pluck in voting for Stéphane Dion in 2006, they have caved since Dion’s flameout, as if to say with relief, “Please, oh powerful ones in the Liberal executive, don’t invest us with this awesome power. Look what we did with it last time.”
And who better than Ignatieff, who can trace his roots to the court of the last czar of Russia, to save a neutered rank and file that would rather be told than tell?
Only about 2,000 delegates of an eligible 8,000 showed up in Vancouver, well over 600 of them party officials, MPs, etc, points out U of T prof Nelson Wiseman. “Add all that up and the convention was a real comment on how little importance Canadians place on political parties.”
