Fire and Ashes
ALSO BY MICHAEL IGNATIEFF
NON-FICTION
A Just Measure of Pain:
Penitentiaries in the Industrial Revolution, 1780–1850
The Wealth and Virtue:
The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment
(ed. with Istvan Hont)
The Needs of Strangers
The Russian Album
Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism
The Warrior’s Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience
Isaiah Berlin: A Life
Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond
The Rights Revolution: The Massey Lectures
Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry
Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan
The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror
American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (ed.)
True Patriot Love
Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics
FICTION
Asya
Scar Tissue
Charlie Johnson in the Flames
PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA
COPYRIGHT © 2013 Michael Ignatieff
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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Ignatieff, Michael
Fire and ashes : success and failure in politics / Michael Ignatieff.
eISBN: 978-0-345-81328-2
1. Ignatieff, Michael. 2. Canada—Politics and government—2006–. 3. Political leadership—Canada. 4. Liberal Party of Canada—History—21st century. 5. Canada. Parliament—Elections, 2011. I. Title.
FC641.I35A3 2013 971.07’3092 C2013-901546-9
Cover design by Terri Nimmo
Cover images: Larry Washburn/Getty Images; haveseen/dreamstime.com; picsfive and odua images/shutterstock.com
v3.1
For Zsuzsanna, and in memory of Brad Davis, Michael Griesdorf and Mario Laguë
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
ONE: Hubris
TWO: Ambition
THREE: Fortuna
FOUR: Reading the Room
FIVE: Money and Language
SIX: Responsibility and Representation
SEVEN: Standing
EIGHT: Enemies and Adversaries
NINE: What the Taxi Driver Said
TEN: The Calling
Notes
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
You can’t go anywhere in politics without a team who give their all for you. I got as far as I did thanks to a team who started as strangers and ended up as friends. If I’ve forgotten any of you, please forgive me.
Alfred Apps, Dan Brock and Ian Davey brought me into politics. Senator David Smith and his irrepressible assistant, Jen Hartley, helped mobilize caucus support for my leadership campaign. Former prime ministers Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien gave me advice, some of which I should have heeded. Bill Graham led the party well throughout 2006. Marc Lalonde and Donald S. Macdonald, ministers in Pierre Trudeau’s governments, offered me the benefit of their experience, as did Robert and Elinor Caplan and David and Penny Collenette. Adrian McDonald, Carolina Gallo and Nancy Coldham seemed to be at every venue, as were David Wright and Larry Herman. Sachin Aggarwal, Alexis Levine, Mark Sakamoto and Leslie Church formed the core of the team of lawyers and students who ran my leadership campaign; Milton Chan was one of the data monkeys and Tom Allison was an eminence grise. Beth Hirshfeld ran my canvassing team. Paula Viola tramped the streets with me before going off to law school. Marc Chalifoux was my personal assistant in 2006. Besides raising money, Elvio and Marlene DelZotto took me under their wing. Abe Schwartz marshalled the video team for the 2006 convention and became a good friend. Mary Kancer was my indefatigable constituency assistant in Etobicoke–Lakeshore; Armand Conant was my official agent; and Jamie Maloney was the president of my riding association. I can still hear his mother, Marion Maloney, fiercely urging me to get more women into my campaign. Kathy Kotris, Annetta Jewell, Natasha Bronfman, Jill Fairbrother, Marti Rowse and Connie Micaleff were the backbone of the Etobicoke–Lakeshore team. I shared the riding with Laurel Broten, member of Provincial Parliament. Jeff Kehoe flew me around southern Ontario through thunderstorms and late-night landings in tiny airstrips. Paul Zed’s exuberant driving terrified me on the roads of New Brunswick. Steve Megannety was the “sign guy” who said to me: “Give me my party back”; Kevin Chan gave up a promising career in the Privy Council Office to write policy for me; Adam Goldenberg wrote speeches that I foolishly tried to improve. Peter Donolo served as my chief of staff and with Pat Sorbara, Heather Chiasson and Jean Marc Fournier led the team that ran my office from 2009 onward; Patrick Parisot brought his political and diplomatic experience to bear in the leader’s office; Sarah Welch kept us running smoothly; Jeremy Broadhurst brought phlegmatic charm to the management of Commons business; Brian Bohunicky and Michael McNair helped me draft the platform for the 2011 election; Casey Antolak, Dan Langer, Dave Ritchie and Jim Pimblett kept me on the road; Gavin Menzies kept telling me, “You’re living the dream.” Marc Gendron, Gosia Radaczynska and Jordan Owens led our social media team. Richard Maksymetz, our western organizer, never did give up smoking; Matt Stickney never forgot to have a good time; and Mike O’Shaugnessy mastered duck-walking backward through a crowd.
Trevor Harrison, Christian Provenzano and Rheal Lewis staffed me as deputy leader and together we lived the crisis over the Chalk River nuclear facility in December 2007.
Josh Drache, Expie Casteura and Gerry Petit welcomed us home to Stornoway and made it a refuge for two and a half years. Jane Kennedy looked after Zsuzsanna and me with a tender heart. Scott McCord always knew how to find a way to get us where we had to go.
Ian McKay, executive director of the party, kept the show on the road through a difficult period.
Kevin Vickers, Sergeant at Arms, reminded me, whenever I forgot, that the House of Commons is a place of dignity; Speaker Peter Milliken defended the privileges of Parliament with courage. The director of the party’s legislative operations in the House of Commons, Richard Wackid, loved the House too and lost a brave battle to Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The members of Parliament and senators who served with me on the Liberal benches between 2006 and 2011 gave me a lesson in politics every Wednesday at caucus and every time we worked together in their constituencies across the country. I also want to thank all of the candidates who stood under my leadership in the 2011 election.
Olivier Duchesneau, Brigitte Legault, Robert Asselin, Paul Ryan, Marc-André Blanchard, Raymond Garneau, Jean-Marc Fournier and Lucienne Robillard did their best to make me understand the politics of Quebec, as Dwight Duncan, Don Guy and Aileen Carroll did in Ontario. No visit to London, Ontario, was possible without Mary Mclaughlin. Dalton McGuinty, premier of the province of Ontario, told me: “There are only two questions worth asking in politics: are you ready to win, and are you prepared to lose?” Premier Jean Charest of Quebec told me the essential word in politics is
“la pérseverance, Monsieur Ignatieff, la pérseverance.” In Newfoundland, Paul Antle organized the team and let me rest on his downstairs couch; in Nova Scotia, Jim and Sharon Davis gave us an inspiring example of courage: Jim’s son Paul died in service in Afghanistan. In Saskatchewan, the Richardson and Merchant families were unfailing in their support. In Alberta, Grant Mitchell, Joan Bourassa and Daryl Fridhandler kept the flame alive; in British Columbia, Keith and Mary Jane Mitchell were always available to commiserate and Gordon and Kilby Gibson and their daughters were there to advise and inspire. David and Brenda McLean were both generous and welcoming. Jatinder and Rosie Rai were great guides to all the communities of BC’s lower Mainland.
Michael Chong of the Conservatives, Peter Stoffer of the NDP and Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Québécois proved that civility across the aisle was possible in the House of Commons.
André Pratte of La Presse, Susan Delacourt of the Toronto Star, John Ibbitson and Michael Valpy of the Globe and Mail and Craig Oliver of CTV showed that journalists can keep confidences and not betray you. Michael Levine tried to warn me of the dangers I was running, but I didn’t listen.
Chris Bredt and Jamie Cameron showed up on the night of defeat, when everyone else had left, and kept us company. Kirsten Walgren and Rob Riemen gave us a break in Amsterdam when we needed it most, and Bernard Haitink and Simon Rattle provided sublime inspiration.
Bob Rae, my friend and rival through five years of political life, served loyally under my leadership and served the party well as interim leader.
Rob Prichard, John Fraser, David Naylor and Janice Gross Stein helped me find gainful employment afterward. David Ellwood, Iris Bohnet, Arthur Applbaum and many other colleagues welcomed me back to the Kennedy School.
The dean of the Law School at the University of Pennsylvania invited me to give the J. Roberts Memorial Lecture in 2012, “Standing in Law and Politics.” Brendan O’Leary gave me helpful comments about the lecture. Peter Florence invited me to give the Raymond Williams Lecture on Politics and Literature at the Hay Festival in 2012. The Humanities Center at Stanford University invited me to give the Presidential Lecture in 2012, entitled “Enemies and Adversaries: Partisanship in Politics,” and the Center for the Study of Rationality at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem invited me to give the Edna Ullmann-Margalit Lecture in 2013, “Rationality in Politics.” My Kennedy School students in DPI 205—Responsibility and Representation—helped me to understand what this book is trying to say. I want to thank Linacre College, Oxford, for the honour of asking me to give a Tanner Lecture on Representation and Responsibility in June 2013.
Derek Johns of AP Watt saw the point of this book when others did not. Ian Malcolm of Harvard University Press and Paul Taunton of Random House Canada shared Derek’s faith, and their editing made it better.
My brother, Andrew Ignatieff, had his doubts about whether this political journey was advisable, but once I was launched on my way, he supported me through every twist and turn.
The book commemorates three men: Brad Davis, a young lawyer who worked on my campaign in 2006 and who died of cancer; Michael Griesdorf, who campaigned door to door with me in 2006 and died in 2008; and Mario Laguë, director of communications in my office, who died in an accident in August 2010. I mourn them all.
Fire and Ashes is dedicated to the one who was there at the beginning, did every mile of the journey and is still there now: my wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar.
ONE
HUBRIS
ONE NIGHT IN OCTOBER 2004, three men we had never met before—and whom we later called “the men in black”—arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to take my wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, and me out to dinner. We met at the Charles Hotel, next door to the Kennedy School of Government, where I taught human rights and international politics. Alfred Apps, a Toronto lawyer, seemed to be the leader. He was voluble; ash flew from his cigarette, wine drained from his glass and he dominated the conversation. Dan Brock was the urbane one, a debonair English-speaking Montrealer with a big Toronto law firm. The third was Ian Davey, a writer and filmmaker with deep-set eyes beneath heavy brows. He was the son of “the Rainmaker,” Senator Keith Davey, manager of many fabled national campaign victories for the Liberal Party. After a drink or two, Apps came to the point: Would I consider returning to Canada and running for the Liberal Party?
The Liberal Party was in power in Ottawa then, and I asked if the prime minister, Paul Martin, had sent them. They exchanged glances. Not exactly. The men in black, it seemed, were acting on their own initiative. They were proposing a run from outside, and their ambition, they said plainly, was to make me prime minister one day. Dan Brock said the party was “heading for a train wreck.” Without a new leader it would lose the next election. They would put together a team. Young people would flock to our banner. They would find me a seat and help me win it at the next election, due sometime in the next two years. Would I at least consider it?
It was an astonishing proposition. I had never thought of myself as anything but Canadian, but I hadn’t lived in the country for more than thirty years. I’d been a fellow at King’s College, Cambridge, a freelance writer in Britain, and now a professor at Harvard. True, I had worked on Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s campaign in 1968 and I had observed politicians all my life, but why did anyone think my political writing qualified me to become a politician? I was an intellectual, someone who lives for ideas, for the innocent and not-so-innocent pleasures of talk and argument. I’d always admired the intellectuals who had made the transition into politics—Mario Vargas Llosa in Peru, Václav Havel in the Czech Republic, Carlos Fuentes in Mexico—but I knew that many of them had failed, and in any event, I wasn’t exactly in their league.1
What the men in black were proposing was incredible. I had no idea whether they could deliver any of what they promised. When the meal ended and they headed back to Toronto, I said merely that I would think about it.
Zsuzsanna and I walked silently home along the banks of the Charles River in the autumn darkness. We were happy together. I had astonishing students as well as illustrious colleagues, and we both felt at ease, if not at home, in the States. So what was it now—delayed patriotism? raw ambition? some long-suppressed longing for significance?—that seemed to be knocking me off my moorings? What didn’t well up inside me was laughter. It should have. The idea was preposterous. Who did I think I was?
Fire and Ashes is the story of why—soon after, and against the better judgment of some good friends—I said yes to the men in black. It is the story of a brutal initiation, followed by a climb to the summit of politics in the largest democracy by physical size in the world. I want to explain how it becomes possible for an otherwise sensible person to turn his life upside down for the sake of a dream, or to put it less charitably, why a person like me succumbed, so helplessly, to hubris.
This is more of an analytical memoir than an exercise in autobiography. I want to use my own story to extract the wheat from the chaff, to reach for what is generic about politics as a vocation, as a way of life. I lived that life to the full, and for all its dark moments I miss it still. I knew what it was like to speak to four thousand people in a teeming hall, to hold them briefly, or so I thought, in the palm of my hand. I also knew what it was like to speak to a hostile crowd when waves of stony suspicion radiated from every face. I felt the surge of loyalty from the thousands of people who joined our cause and I experienced the sting of betrayal from a conspiratorial few. There were times when I felt I was shaping and moulding events, other times when I watched helplessly as events slipped out of my control; I knew moments of exaltation when I thought I might be able to do great things for the people, and now I live with the regret that I will never be able to do anything at all. In short, I lived the life. I paid for what I learned. I pursued the flame of power and saw hope dwindle to ashes.
Ash is a humble residue but it has its uses. My mother and father used to spade ash from their grate onto the roses against the west-facing wa
ll of our house. My parents are long since gone, but when their roses bloom every summer I like to think it is because I still spade the ashes from the cold fire onto their roots.
The ashes of my experience, I hope, will be dug into somebody’s garden. I hope that what I learned from five years in the arena will speak to those who were once kids like me, giving little speeches to themselves as they walked to school, who dreamed of political glory and in adulthood acted out their childhood dreams. Anyone who loves politics—as I still do—wants to encourage others to live for their dreams but also to enter the fray better prepared than I was. I want them to know—to feel—what it is like to succeed, but also to know what it is like to fail, so they will learn not to be afraid of either.
This book is in praise of politics and politicians. I came away from my experience with renewed respect for politicians as a breed and with reinvigorated faith in the good sense of citizens. If this sounds strange, or even disingenuous, coming from someone whose political career ended in failure, I would reply that failure has its privileges. I’ve earned the right to praise a life that did not go so well for me.
There is so much wrong with democratic politics today—and I will say what I think is wrong—that it is easy to forget what is right about the democratic ideal: the faith, constantly tested, that ordinary men and women can rightly choose those who govern in their name, and that those they choose can govern with justice and compassion. The challenge of writing about democratic politics is to be unsparing about its reality without abandoning faith in its ideals. I lived by that faith, and this book is a testament to the faith that abides with me still.
TWO
AMBITION
THE FIRST THING YOU NEED TO KNOW when you enter politics is why you’re doing it. You’d be surprised at how many people go into politics without being able to offer anyone a convincing reason why. But why is the first question they—voters, press and rivals—will ask you, and your success or failure turns on how you answer. The truth might be that you want to lead your country because the job comes with a plane, a house, a bureaucracy at your beck and call, and a security detail of men and women in suits with guns and earpieces. The truth may be that you long for power and enjoy the thrill of holding people’s futures in your hands. It might be that you are in search of posterity. You want to be famous, to be in the history books, to have schools named after you and your portrait hung in hallowed halls. It might be that you want to settle scores with your past. You want to revenge yourself on everyone who ever said you wouldn’t amount to anything.