Ottawa

Jason Kenney, not struck speechless

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is the Conservatives’ designated rebutter for the Ignatieff TV ad. Kenney is not, by all the evidence, low on opinions this weekend:

Today, the Liberal Party is trying to rehabilitate the reputation of their leader with an ad campaign. But it’s a ruse. It’s phoney. Michael Ignatieff is trying to re-cast himself as a man of the people, a leader who can be entrusted with the Canadian economy. He is hoping Canadians will forget his record. He’s hoping Canadians won’t notice that he’s putting Canada’s economic recovery at risk by forcing an unnecessary election. Mr. Ignatieff is hoping he can hide who he really is. How do we know? Because he has said so. In a frank moment in 2005 that was caught on tape, here’s what Michael Ignatieff said to his elite American friends at Harvard: “This may be the last time I can be the way I actually am.” Think about that for a moment. Mr. Ignatieff, surrounded by his professional friends and colleagues in the United States, bluntly tells them that when he’s back in Canada running for office, he can’t be who he actually is. He has to pretend to be someone else. So while Michael Ignatieff now wants to be Prime Minister of Canada …. just remember what he told his American friends … because he’s on the record calling the United States of America his country, and calling the Canadian flag a “pale imitation of a beer label.” When he tries to tell you he is a man who understands ordinary people…just remember what he told his friends…because he’s on the record calling himself “horribly arrogant” and “cosmopolitan”. And when he tries to tell you he’s got a plan for the economy….remember…. he is a self-described tax and spend liberal. He was the first Canadian politician to propose a carbon tax. He has refused to take a GST hike off the table. He has admitted that he would raise taxes. He has tabled an irresponsible Employment Insurance spending scheme that has been called “catastrophic”. He has put his own agenda ahead of Canada’s best interests by trying to force a second election in one year, before Canada’s economy fully recovers. And when he tries to tell you that he didn’t back a coalition with the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP…remember, he signed a letter to the Governor General in black and white endorsing the coalition, and later confirmed that he would like to lead a coalition government. Canadians deserve to know the real Michael Ignatieff. The Michael Ignatieff that told his Harvard friends that he had to hide his true self when he got back to Canada. The Michael Ignatieff that is putting himself ahead of Canadians. The Michael Ignatieff that is threatening an unnecessary election that will put the Canadian economic recovery at risk.

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