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Future PM of Canada
well...maybe. Anytime I've read any of his articles, editorials, etc. I'm struck by his insight and intelligence. Here's someone who's a scholar and a journalist...not a businessman. Maybe the change needed to restore faith in the Liberal Party:
| quote: | Ignatieff coming home to U of T
Speculation on future swirls
Is scholar aiming for Liberal helm?
ANDREW MILLS
OTTAWA BUREAU
OTTAWA—Michael Ignatieff is coming home to Canada — leaving his post at Harvard University for a prestigious position at the University of Toronto, sources close to him say.
This news, to be announced by the university today, will undoubtedly fuel speculation the Canadian-born scholar plans to make a bid for the leadership of the federal Liberal party.
Ignatieff, 58, will become the Chancellor Jackman visiting professor in human rights policy and will also become a fellow at the university's Munk Centre for International Studies.
He and his wife have bought a condominium close to the university's downtown campus, according to a friend who wanted to remain anonymous.
They are expected to spend the bulk of this fall in Toronto as Ignatieff takes on duties at U of T and wraps up work as director of Harvard's Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy in Cambridge, Mass. Ignatieff will take up all his new duties in January.
"His intention is not to make his move back to Canada temporary," the friend said. "His intention is to make it permanent."
Suspicions have swirled through political circles in recent months that Ignatieff has the leadership of the Liberal party in his sights.
Many will see his return to Canada after nearly 30 years abroad as preparation to run for the leadership.
But Ignatieff has denied he has any such plans and his friends say his return to Canada isn't connected to his potential future career here.
"He's been talking about coming back to Canada for a long time," said the friend, who is a member of the Liberal party.
"I think that he is increasingly interested in the public and political debate in Canada, so I think all of these things have led him to make a decision that now is a good time. ... The issue for Michael Ignatieff will be how best for him to make a contribution to public and political debate. That will be a question he asks himself."
Nevertheless, the attractive and charismatic Ignatieff, who is the author of several books, has been quietly circulating in some Liberal circles since March, when he came to Ottawa to deliver the keynote address at the party's policy convention.
In May, according to party insiders, Ignatieff met with prominent Liberals in at least Quebec and Nova Scotia.
And a group of prominent Toronto Liberals — who once supported leadership hopeful John Manley — have surrounded Ignatieff. That group, which includes Toronto lawyer Alfred Apps, has encouraged him to become more involved in the party, which has no obvious heir apparent who will take over when Prime Minister Paul Martin steps down as leader.
Martin, who turns 67 on Sunday, will lead the Liberals into an election expected this winter.
Ignatieff is going to have to build his profile if he wants to succeed Martin. In a poll conducted by SES Research for the Toronto Star this week, only 4 per cent of Canadians said they see Ignatieff as the prime contender to replace Martin.
The poll showed Ignatieff falling behind Frank McKenna, Bob Rae and John Manley. Support for Ignatieff was tied with support for Martin Cauchon.
Nevertheless, Ignatieff's increasing activity in the Liberal party represents a homecoming of sorts for a man who volunteered on Pierre Trudeau's bid for the leadership in 1968 and worked in the election that year after Trudeau came to power.
Ignatieff's return to the University of Toronto is a homecoming as well; it's from that institution's Trinity College that he graduated in 1969. His father, diplomat George Ignatieff, served Trinity as provost in the 1970s, and the wider university as chancellor in the 1980s.
Michael Ignatieff went on to complete a PhD in history at Harvard and then a master's degree at Cambridge University. He has worked as a journalist for the BBC, The Observer, Time magazine and, most recently, The New York Times Magazine. And his career as an academic has taken him from the University of British Columbia to King's College at Cambridge University, to Harvard and now to the U of T.
The University of Toronto has been courting Ignatieff for several years, the friend said, and the decision to return is all Ignatieff's. "It's a world that's very familiar to him, to which he has a lot of strong and positive memories," the friend said.
But the move may come as a surprise because as recently as March, he told the Star's Graham Fraser that leaving Harvard just wasn't in his future.
"Simple things are true," Ignatieff said then. "I have the best job in the world, and I can't see any foreseeable circumstance where I want to change. And that's the hand-on-heart truth."
Whatever the case, his acceptance of U of T's offer is a huge success for the university, which, according to a university source, has had difficulty filling the Chancellor Jackman chairs.
They were created in 1998 after Henry Jackman, a former university chancellor and philanthropist, gave a $15 million endowment to attract internationally renowned scholars in the humanities to U of T. |
source: Toronto Star - August 26, 2005
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Nathan Fake - Outhouse (Valentino Kanzyani Remix) 
