On Michael Ignatieff's speech on the connection between Foreign and Domestic Cdn policy (excerpt in the Toronto Star)

The excerpt of his speech is located at:

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1117663830280&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795


My comments:

It's one thing to speak generally when attempting to inspire- it's another thing to say very little that is concrete. Ignatieff points at problems- he doesn't point out why they are problems. He does not propose solutions. The depressing thing he still sounds better informed about Canadian problems than any federal politician.

And before we follow this mindless drivel about projecting power- Ignatieff points to protesters in Paris in 1968 and the ghost of Trudeau. Trudeau would never approve of "projecting power" as a rationale for creating a Canadian nationalism. After all shortly after coming to office, Trudeau halved the number of Canadian troops dedicated to NATO. He was trying to define a new nationalism at the time. Ignatieff is recycling trite and watered down realpolitik notions for his nationalism. He wants idealists protesting on the street. For what? For the vague, insipid notion of what he thinks Canadian nationalism should be.

Perhaps he should look into what does inspire young people to protest on the streets- WB, IMF, Globalisation, the Environment, the War in Iraq. Nobody is going to come onto the streets to demonstrate because .... "we cannot project power and influence abroad"

It is ridiculous to suggest that nationalism has weakened because Canada has not acted abroad. Canadian nationalism has been suffering internal haemorrhage. Canadian nationalism has been in trouble ever since parts of the country outside of Ontario and Quebec grew large enough to express their discomfort with rules geared towards the compact between those two provinces. Ad campaigns based on Canada's influence on the world are irrelevant sound-bites in the screaming match that ensues from domestic power imbalances.

This is the bankruptcy of ideas- when the most prophetic Canadian proto-polician sounds like he's running an independent election campaign.

I sympathise with Mr. Ignatieff's concerns...barely. Ignatieff seems to be worried that the elite of which he is a part is about to lose its precarious place. The speech sounds like the complaint of a petit bourgeois about to lose his club membership.

Is there anyone sounding better? Have the nationalists completely run out of ideas?