Tag Archives: michael ignatieff

What not to say about a hung Parliament

By Mark Pack | Sun 24th April 2011 - 11:25 am

The initial promise of Canadian Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s campaign is fading badly as polling day approaches on Canada and one of the main reasons is one very familiar to British politics. It’s the failure to have a good answer to the question, “What would you do in a hung Parliament?”

As Adam Radwanski puts it The Globe and Mail when looking at how Ignatieff and Conservative Premier Stephen Harper are faring:

If the two men were being graded by civics teachers, Mr. Ignatieff would indeed be winning. His explanation of how another Conservative minority would work – the need

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Posted in News | Also tagged canada and stephen harper | 3 Comments

Will Ignatieff’s open campaigning approach work in Canada?

By Mark Pack | Sat 9th April 2011 - 2:23 pm

Despite the similarity of the Canadian and British political systems – far, far more similar than the US and British ones – it’s American rather than Canadian politics that usually gets talked about for political lessons for Britain. Hence in the run up to the general election TV debates there was plenty of talk of the US debates (Presidential system) rather than the Canadian ones (Parliamentary system).

The Canadian approach to cutting a large government deficit was briefly all the talk of London think tank circles last summer. That fashion for of Canada quickly moved on, even though the comparisons …