Resistance Against Ignatieff’s Paratrooper Jump

Toronto residents with Ukrainian roots are protesting Michael Ignatieff’s bid to run for the Liberals in their riding.

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Members of the Etobicoke Lakeshore Federal Liberal Riding Association claim the Liberals are trying to make it easy on Ignatieff at the expense of other contenders.

The group also claims Ignatieff has no ties to the Ukrainian community and worse, has actually disrespected the community’s heritage in one of his books.

This is curious at so many levels. The first funny thing is that Ignatieff chose Calgary to announce his [would be] candidacy. Is that going to change the intention of voters in Calgary?

Second, he makes the announcement but has no constituency in which to run yet. Would it not have made more sense to announce the news after he knew where he was going to land? –and land is the word because all the nominations had been closed in the 308 ridings. He’s a parachutist. And how should blacks, immigrants, and females in the Liberal party feel, now that Jean Augustine is being pushed out for the sake of a white guy? The announcement with no constituency sounds to me as if Ignatieff is trying to light a little fire under someone’s pants so that they get him his constituency. Tensions already? Or just incompetent timing on both parts?

On Ukrainians not being happy, I can’t say much because I have not read the book of Ignatieff’s that some Ukrainians apparently find offensive. But I could see how some pencil-neck Liberal apparatchik who heard that Ukrainians and Russians eat borscht might have thought that Ukrainians are the same as Russians.

Ultimately, it is a problem related to the one before. Liberals have made a carpet beggar of their main star candidate. Ignatieff must really want to be a Liberal MP really badly to subject himself to that kind of humiliation. And that is good news for the Liberals. They’ll have him speaking Ukrainian in no time.