Quote:
Originally Posted by Rerun
Somehow I don't believe that making Canada a better place is Ignatieff's motivation. I suspect his motivation is somewhat more personal and once he fails in his quest for the PM office
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I suspect any person running under the Liberal banner would get the same benefit of the doubt from you.
Honestly, there are at least three reasons that the "Ignatieff isn't Canadian" argument is dumb.
1. Academics have to travel around. It's a great career as long as you don't mind not getting to live where you want to live. So the idea that he had a lot of "choices" is just naive and silly. Of course he followed his career path to the best job--as anyone would. As a matter of fact, I moved to the U.S. for 10 years to pursue an academic career. It sucked, but it's a bread-and-butter decision--there's just more money down there for that sort of thing. The equivalent would be if you were trained as a CPA, but you couldn't get a job in your field without moving to New York. Would that make you less Canadian?
2. It's not like the U.S. is that different a place to live. Ignatieff lived in Boston, not Belgrade. Believe it or not, Americans are pretty similar to us. They face some of the same practical challenges in every day life that we do. Pretending that Ignatieff's experience makes him unable to understand daily life in Canada is... dumb. I'm sorry, but that's what it is.
3. It's nativist BS. We should be finding the most qualified people to run our country, not the most "Canadian."
The fact that Harper trotted out this weak nativist argument last year reeks of desperation--as if he doesn't feel that his qualifications compare. Why not make this an election about ideas and not about what city people chose to work in before entering politics.
Seriously, there are good and bad reasons to make any particular electoral choice. This is one of the bad ones--because it has nothing to do with what politics is really supposed to be about--the competition of ideas in a public forum.
For the record, I lived in the U.S. for 10 years, and came close to staying another 5. I never considered myself less Canadian--in fact, I consider the notion that I "gave up" any part of my Canadian identity preposterous and offensive.