Quote:
Originally Posted by zuluking
IFF, you stated he came back to Canada before politics. I posted that he came back for politics period and that the U of T gig was merely a handy day job to launch his leadership bid from - Harvard being inconveniently in the U.S.
I would suggest that the U of T gig would absolutely NEVER enter his mind as an equivalent post as the one he left in Harvard. Meaning he came back for the Liberal leadership and ultimately PM. And the only reason was because some Liberal guys sold him on being the shoe-in saviour.
You said it yourself: Harvard egghead - $250K; backbench MP - $150K. He didn't come back to be an MP for noble service of his country. You want to talk about laughable!
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You're misunderstanding me. I actually didn't say that he didn't come back to Canada for politics--just that U of T is a pretty good backup plan if it doesn't work out. You know, U of T is a very good school--you don't just waltz in there and ask for a job, even if you are at Harvard. That just isn't how the academy works.
What I was responding to was two things: the notion that nothing ties him to Canada (as if it matters anyway) and the notion that Ignatieff is in politics for money. Face it: he could make
way more money as a professor. There's no way to spin politics as a moneymaking profession for him--it's a
massive paycut right now, and still a pretty sizeable one if he wins the next election.
So yeah, I agree. It's laughable. Nativism is laughable on its own--the notion that someone who leaves this country somehow gives up his identity. But the money thing was particularly good. The life of a Harvard professor is pretty darn comfortable. If Ignatieff was after money and prestige, he'd have been better off staying where he was. Going into politics was a huge risk, and in the short term means walking away from more than 150,000 dollars a year for the better part of a decade.
I'm not saying he's a hero. The fact is, pretty much everyone who succeeds in politics could be making more money somewhere else--it's kind of par for the course. The same probably applies to Harper--though he is admittedly more of a career politician.