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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION

Ignatieff ignites Liberals with Obama-like thunder

By: Joan Bryden

Posted: 05/3/2009 8:48 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

VANCOUVER — Michael Ignatieff formally claimed the Liberal crown Saturday and wasted little time throwing down the gauntlet to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Ignatieff was short on details about the kind of government he’d lead, but he was precise in his critique of Harper’s Tories, bluntly accusing the prime minister of failing to unite the country.
"I want to speak directly to Stephen Harper," he told about 3,000 cheering Liberals moments after being acclaimed leader.
"For three years you have played province against province, group against group, region against region and individual against individual. When your power was threatened last November, you unleashed a national unity crisis and you saved yourself only by sending Parliament home.
"You have failed to understand that a prime minister has one job and only one job, which is to unite the people of this country. Mr. Harper you have failed us."
Ignatieff added with a flourish: "If you can’t unite Canadians, if you can’t appeal to the best in all of us, we can."
He repeated the "we can" refrain several times, borrowing heavily from Barack Obama’s wildly successful U.S. presidential campaign, whose slogan was "Yes, we can."
A video tribute that was shown just moments before Ignatieff took the stage to claim his prize featured plenty of photos of the Liberal leader with Obama. They generated thunderous applause.
Like Obama, Ignatieff vowed to take a new, more civil approach to politics. He said Canadians are "longing for a new politics that replaces spite and spin with civility and common purpose."
Although he’s been under mounting pressure to start spelling out his vision for the country, Ignatieff did not stake out any precise policy turf.
He repeated his commitment to a national standard for Employment Insurance eligibility.
More broadly, however, the former Harvard professor did signal that one of his overriding priorities will be to develop a strategy for lifelong learning, which he said is essential if the country is to climb out of the economic cellar.

— The Canadian Press

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