The Iggy-Obama Continent

Under new leader Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal Party of Canada stands to greatly profit from the ascent of Barack Obama to the White House.
If they play astutely, the Liberals can successfully appear as the Obama administration’s natural cousins, painting Harper as increasingly out of step and reactionary by contrast.
While Ignatieff is certainly no Obama, there are nonetheless crucial convergences between the two leaders which merit emphasis. On an interpersonal level, Ignatieff enjoys close ties with the incoming Obama administration, dating back to his time as head of the human rights centre at Harvard, from where many of Obama’s closest advisors are drawn.
Among the most influential of these mutual relations is Pulitzer Prize-winning author and human rights expert Samantha Power, a key advisor to Obama and current member of his State Department transition team. Her and Ignatieff became close friends during his time at Harvard, where she continues her work within the Carr Centre for Human Rights.
More importantly, the two leaders are liberal Harvard intellectuals, former professors, noted orators and accomplished authors who draw their values and worldviews from the same philosophical and ideological well.
In the coming months, the economic crisis will present a golden opportunity for the Liberals to showcase such an Iggy-Obama policy convergence, and it is an opportunity Ignatieff must seize by the horns.
South of the border, Obama has already begun singing the virtues of a green stimulus, emphasizing the necessary symbiosis between economic and environmental imperatives in the current era. Lauded by some as the greenest administration in American history, Obama’s incoming team features a roster of some of the world’s top environmental advocates. In doing so, Obama has signalled his intention to break with the past and attack the economic crisis through what Britain’s The Independent has coined a “Green New Deal” – namely, massive investment in clean energy, green infrastructure and jobs in sustainable industries, as well as campaigns aimed at increasing the nation’s energy efficiency.
On this side of the border, Ignatieff has already started echoing the message. The Liberals would be wise to continue and expand upon this strategy, especially since Obama’s inauguration day, Jan. 20, falls exactly one week prior to the resumption of Parliament and the presentation of Harper’s crucial budget.
Regardless of whether the Liberals decide to support the budget or topple the government, Ignatieff must seize the issue immediately by advocating the sort of “Green New Deal” being promoted by Obama. The contrast this would provide with Harper’s narrow and bifurcated understanding of the relation between economics and the environment would serve to cast Harper as increasingly out of step with the currents of history, and it wouldn’t be long before Canadians decide to jettison such a leader in favour of Ignatieff.
Even before Obama’s meteoric rise, Ignatieff electrified the 2005 Liberal convention audience in a rousing appeal to the unity of the Canadian people, and to the hope and promise of the Canadian dream.
If Ignatieff can seize the narrative in the coming months, then Harper will be irreparably tarred as yesterday’s man, as a relic of the Bush years, and Ignatieff will soon be Prime Minister.