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Ignatieff, McFadyen do the shuffle dance

Both change staff looking for political traction

By: Dan Lett

20/11/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 16

The contractor has arrived, the dumpster is out front and the renovations have begun in earnest at Michael Ignatieff's Parliament Hill office.This is no cosmetic remodelling; the leader of the official opposition has completely gutted his staff and is in the process of rebuilding his strategy. It's not hard to figure out why he needed to take such dramatic steps.

Appointed as leader of the Liberal party just under a year ago, Ignatieff's fortunes have fallen faster than a sack of wet cement dropped out of a 10-storey window. He is now lurking in Dionian levels of support, and Liberals that were quick to get on the Iggy bandwagon are asking themselves if they traded in one leader with no hope of winning for another of the same ilk.

At least Ignatieff is not going to go down without a fight. Following a horrendous autumn, Ignatieff hired former Chrétien communications wizard Peter Donolo, who has hired new staff for every key position. (Included in the mix is Winnipegger Brian Bohunicky, a wonk who cut his teeth in the service of former Manitoba regional minister Lloyd Axworthy. Serving as the new policy director, Bohunicky is as tough as he is smart.)

But it's not just the faces that are new. Liberal insiders indicate Donolo is remaking strategy as well. He is ending the daily blizzard of meaningless news releases. Donolo is also reportedly looking at a new strategy for question period that would see less of a shotgun approach in favour of a focused attack that would see fewer issues raised. This will allow the Grits to hammer Tory ministers on a few important questions, rather than the glancing blows that come from raising too many issues.

On paper, at least, these are wise moves for the Liberals, who are adrift right now with neither policy nor ideology to nail them down. That is not Ignatieff's fault alone; this is par for the course in opposition politics.

With nothing to do but criticize, it is easy for opposition politicians to become whining, broken records who try to hold the governing party responsible for everything that is wrong with society. Whine and complain every time you open your mouth and you know what voters think? That you're a whiner and complainer.

Most reasonably intelligent voters know that no one party is responsible for global warming, an aging and increasingly sick population, street crime or the weather. It took many governments to cement those afflictions.

In lieu of the blame game, what is an opposition leader to do? The classic strategy is be seen, be heard and try to look like a government in waiting. Offer ideas but don't show all your cards, lest the government steal your ideas. And hope the winds of change blow.

Here in Manitoba, we have our own opposition renovation project ongoing.

Hugh McFadyen, leader of the opposition Progressive Conservative party, is looking for traction.

Like Ignatieff, McFadyen has shuffled his staff. Jonathan Lyon, son of former premier Sterling Lyon, is now McFadyen's chief of staff. Tory insiders believe Lyon has more of an edge than Jonathan Scarth, the thoughtful policy wonk who served as McFadyen's chief of staff prior to taking a position as party CEO. Scarth was an upgrade to be sure but in Lyon, the party has someone working with the leader who carries his elbows a bit higher.

In communications, the Tories have made great strides. For years after losing power in 1999, the Tories saw a parade of train-wreck spin doctors. McFadyen has thankfully settled on the efficient and well-respected Liz Peters, who gets her point across without berating journalists, a hallmark of previous administrations.

On paper, it's a good team. But that's only part of the job. The bigger task is figuring out what the party stands for.

McFadyen has challenged Tories to become the party of change. He has committed the party to finding a new and more diverse generation of candidates for the 2011 election. However, the policy platform adopted at the party's AGM earlier this month was pretty safe and predictable. It won't turn many people off but then again, it won't draw in new support.

Like Ignatieff, McFadyen has to show there is more to his leadership than the ability to hire good people. There has to be "something" more. Unfortunately, in opposition no one knows exactly what that "something" is. Experienced political strategists will tell you only that they recognize it when they see it, and hope that it's not too late to take advantage of it. Ignatieff and McFadyen are building strong organizations in the hopes it can produce a winning strategy. Renovations are expensive and stressful, and members of both parties have their fingers crossed this was time and money well spent.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 20, 2009 A9

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16 Commentscomment icon

@ Buors's 6:02 post,

".....Might just as well wipe our rear ends with the words on paper that our founders thought we might find handy....."

You probably are very serious when you posted that statement, but you had me in tears! Loved it.

joecanadian

Have a look at any map. The CP Rail mainline heads for Selkirk where the high ground is. About 40 miles to the East, the rail bends and heads South to cross the Red River at Winnipeg Manitoba. The government of the day bribed the CP Rail by giving the Railroad all that land under the Arlington Bridge tax free for 100 years.

That changed the course of Manitoba's history. If the CP Rail had crossed in Selkirk, that is where all the development would likely have taken place.

That flood way empties out at Lockport and still Selkirk never or floods a lot less often than Winnipeg.

The flood way and all the upgrading.... would have never have been needed if there was not political interference in the first place. You can look at it and marvel about all the other things that could have been done with that money the next time you cross over it and marvel at the wonders of great politicians and their works.

fedup

Yeah, I got fed up with government too. But I'm an Anarcho-Capitalist. Not a socialist leaning bone in my body.

I used to believe in Constitutional government except that one look at what the government does today informs my opinion that they did not remain the small government our founders meant us to have. McDonald and most of Canada's fathers were Classic liberals and did a pretty good job of dividing the powers and creating a government with specific powers. Too bad things didn't stay that way.

The evil old income tax had to come into existence and ruin everything. For instance, health is a provincial responsibility. The Income tax permitted the Federal government to become so rich they did an end run around the constitution with the implementation of Universal Health Care. Right out of the Otto von Bismarck playbook that one.

So now the Federal government intervienes in everything bribing us with our own money. Might just as well wipe our rear ends with the words on paper that our founders thought we might find handy.

So that's the problem. No words on paper ever constrained any government. Less than 100 years for Canadians to sell liberty for the falsehood of state protections.

There was no need to wind down Crocus. It needed new management and board same as the Blue Bombers. As bad as it was when Doer took the easy way out with my tax break, $2,600 last month and promised future payout I will come out even for my $8,500 investment. The shameless opposition, lazy media and a publicity seeking postal worker cost many of us a lot of money. Look back on your headlines of the time Freep then hang your heads in shame at the outcome.

The Conservatives stand for communist market interventionism. Rather than let private business operate, they want it to intervene to protect market failures like in the case of Crocus. The NDP on the other hand is the pro business party that has essentially eliminated the Small Business tax and continues to cut taxes across the board for citizens. When it comes fiscal responsilibity, the NDP is also leading the way. Whereas the Tories recklessly favour saving a few dollars today and risking extremely expensive litigation from Native Bands tomorrow by diverting the hydro line over aboriginal owned territory, the NDP takes the fiscally conservative position in spending slightly more now in order to completely mitigate the risk of being completely screwed over by the courts in aboriginal property rights lawsuits in the future. It's very much like the 1950 floodway construction (and the recent upgrade), if we had not payed for it then, we would have been economically devestated later.

Buors, you did not say you were an anachist

fedup

Didn't doctors make house calls to even poor people in the 50s?

The "warlord" in Somalia would turn out to be the people the "warlord" in America doesn't like.

Not everybody in Canada is from a British Heritage. Some of us come from a French Heritage.

It would still be a hard government that taxed it people at all.

Good government? You mean like threatening to send potato farmers to jail if they sell to anyone except the Marketing board? Or do you mean the good government that confiscated that farmer's land in Ellice and never did put up the tourist stand they wanted to build? That good government?

There is nothing but either bad government or worse government, I don't believe the government ever did anyone any good without also doing another person harm.

Bours, I was very young in the 50s but do know that the greatest difference between gov budgets and taxes then and now was the intro of medicare. It may have been better but only for the richest amoung us and those lucky enough not to get ill. The point about Somalia is they have no functioning gov so no taxes just protection money to warlords. Your right the US did get rid of the conservative islamic courts that had brought order to large parts of the country. My great, great... grandfather whose family came to British North America in 1630 was killed fighting the Franklin supported terrorists. This is Canada dont quote our historical enemies.

Hollinm,

I have asked you nicely many times, please stop posting lies, and please stop degrading your argument by calling Ignatieff "Iffy". When people see Ad Hominems like that, they give less credibility to the remaining part of your post. This is because they feel, "If he has to resort to name-calling to get his point across, does his point really have any validity to begin with?"

As I have pointed out many times, (usually in the Francis Russell comment sections) Ignatieff was not appointed. He ran in a leadership race, and won. He had 2 opponants in that race.

One dropped out because he was a clear third place, and didn't want the results to show that.

The other dropped out because he saw that it would be a tight race, and that he would lose. He worried that if it went to vote, the close nature of the vote could fracture the party. Rather than doing that, he bowed out graciously and supported his opponant.

Perpetuating the lie about appointment to leadership is as pointless as perpetuating the theory that Ignatieff will leave if he loses the next election. I'll bet that even after the next election, if the Cons win again, they'll still be saying that Ignatieff is "just visiting."

fedup

Maybe Canada before Trudeau when taxes were 17% or even at our inception when there was no income tax at all is what Picadilly prefers.

Canada wasn't like Somalia when taxes were low. In fact Canada was a much better place to live in the 50s when the government wasn't so socialist. People got by somehow without the government micro-managing our lives.

The real problem with Somalia is the American government intervention that is done through the back door....Like getting Ethiopia to march in and put a puppet government in. Remember Ethiopia? Couldn't feed themselves, but somehow they can raise an army to do America bidding.


"It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part." --Ben Franklin--

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