Not to be confused with Quebec…
“Canada has to be out of the asbestos business. We should not export it and we should not produce it”.
(Plus a “he was quick to add” bonus link!)
Not to be confused with Quebec…
“Canada has to be out of the asbestos business. We should not export it and we should not produce it”.
(Plus a “he was quick to add” bonus link!)
Did he say that while wearing a photo of that albatross, Trudeau, around his neck??
Pandering
Pompous
Politician
Proclaims
Phwench-ness
Pho-ever!
Good Post. This had to be a set up. No questions pertaining to western Canada, or the oilsands. Iggy has been trying to garner support here, but never seems to address the things that matter to us most. He speaks of private health care and protection of it, doesn’t he see what is already here? The one thing I want from federal govt. when it comes to health care is put the taxpayers before the criminals. It sickens me that inmates jump the Q and receive tratment first! He must be having a hard time being opposition with the conservatives being so liberal, don’t leave much to complain about.
Someone should adjust the gas flow on Iggy’s BBQ, as the gas flow coming out of his mouth, on sending oil east, just triggered a reflexive Alberta NEP reaction, leading to a LIEberal nuclear meltdown.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Pierre Trudeau: the Kim Il Sung of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Ignatieff’s comment that ‘the West has always been French’ was directed, I suspect, not to the West. But to Quebec.
Ignatieff is trying very hard to get the Quebec vote. And the ethnic vote (Tamils, Pakistani, Arab Foundation). The gay community. That is, he’s going for those who self-define themselves as victims. Not necessarily victims of Canada (which is, of course, the Quebec mantra)..but victims of the world, and in particular, of ‘the rich, the corporations, and of course, the USA’.
He’s not really going to do anything for these victims to move them out of victimhood. That’s because their status is ‘set’; they will not change because then they’d lose their identity. Can you imagine Quebec insisting on its own self-sufficient economic agenda? Not demanding constant payments from Canadians? The Tamils – admitting that they are an integral part of the Sri Lankan massacres? Arabs rejecting the truth that their dysfunctional societies are due entirely to their own rejection of democracy and a middle class?? etc…
But Ignatieff’s vote buying agenda is to go after those who are perpetual victims. He wants their vote; he supports Victims. He doesn’t support self-reliant, self-sufficient people. Just victims.
I’m not Liberal–however I do believe that the original explorers and settlers in many parts of Western Canada (including Edmonton) were French. I also believe that the Hudson Bay Company once carried out most of their fur trading business in French.
I don’t like Iggy all that much–however I don’t believe that taking a half dozen words or so out of one or two sentences and making a big deal out if it is being fair to anyone, especially not to your readers who trust that most of what you read on this site should be accurate. . I’d like to hear or read what Iggy said “before and after.”
In any event–if you want to play racist red-neck with your readers go ahead. However I don’t believe that Mr. Harper and Co. are enjoying all that good a popularity at the moment. Ontario is not about to switch to blue, and such comments as this site often generates will only fuel up Quebec against the west. Good luck in your next minority Conservative government, AKA “Please Mr. Ignatieff, can we cut back on the stimulus??” I don’t know about you people–however I just don’t like begging!
For a history prof he doesn’t seem to know much about his country. The French got land down in southern Sk. because the Ukranians, Poles etc. were here to work the good stuff.
Radisson and Co.,
You might want to check out the North West Company … or not … don’t want to let facts get in the way.
In this country we pride ourselves on being all equal non-hyphenated Canadians.
Liberals like to carve up society into “hyphens” or regions or genders and then pander to specific groups.
It is what can and does divides us. Ignatieff sees the world through the eyes of a self proclaimed “ethnologist”…he does not see us as a unified country of equals.
In fact, I am still p is sed off by his statement a few weeks ago that LIBERALS built Canada.
Not the heathen pioneers and hardworking men and women, the provinces, towns and cities – just the elite Liberals.
He added “Pearsonian Liberals” just to be specific about his newly adopted mantle as one of those. Then he wore Trudeau around his neck at the Gay Pride parade in Toronto. Who is he going to wear around his neck at the Calgary Stampede? Liberals.
And someone should tell him Canadians don’t go backwards for hero worship- we look to the future…and it ain’t him.
Radisson – interesting. My own understanding is that most of the original settlers of the West were not French, but British – and many Scots among them. And the Hudson’s Bay Company, which was an English company, and carried out operations in Saskatchewan (Hearne) carried out its operations in English.
Many of the northern Alberta settlers were French but were displaced by the English Hudson’s Bay.
Again, my point is that Ignatieff is after the Quebec vote. He’s not interested in the current small ratio of French in the West. He’s interested in Quebec seats.
By the way, what does describing the country of origin of settlers have to do with ‘racism’?
Do you recall which parties insisted on the economic stimulus? How the NDP, Liberals and Bloc all yelled that Harper had to ‘spend money’, had to ‘set up a stimulus package’. Or else they’d vote to take down the government. Remember that?
Do you self-define yourself as a victim?
Iggy has obviously pissed off an awful lot of my fellow Ukrainian-Canadians. AGAIN!! See appended. Seems to me that the country called Canada has many ‘founding nations’ in her family tree.
Sounds like Mikey is flogging the politics of division. AGAIN!! Good old Librano stand by trash.
In the end kiddies, Quebec still NEEDS the vile fuel extracted from the tar sands, thought mes amis may be loathe to admit to this reality. I speak here as a laddie boy who grew up in the shadows of the railyards, the docks of Montreal Harbour, the abbatoirs and all the refineries at the eastern tip of Montreal’s island.
Until the quebec clan mass produces electric cars and aircraft, they shall need western based fossil fuels. I just can’t see Duceppe and the boys from the hood cycling up to Ottawa on Monday morning.
From:
Ignatieff Remains Unconvincing
Last week, a meeting with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, spearheaded by Liberal MP
Borys Wrzesnewskyj and his former executive assistant, Yvan Baker (now, UCC-
Toronto Vice-President) took place in Toronto with a handful of representatives of the
Ukrainian community. With a possible election looming, the fact that such a meeting
took place surprised no one. Mr. Wrzesnewskyj finds himself in an unenviable position.
He is stuck with a party leader that most Ukrainians distrust, and many dislike
intensely. By organizing such a meeting, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj had hoped that Mr.
Ignatieff might redeem himself as a politician by withdrawing, once and for all, the
derogatory remarks that so many Ukrainians found offensive. Alas, this was not to be.
Just as in Edmonton one month earlier, by the end of the meeting in Toronto,
notwithstanding his long litany of standard remarks on issues of foreign policy and
immigration, Mr. Ignatieff failed to do the one thing he needed to in order to repair his
image in the eyes of the Ukrainian community—he failed to withdraw his offensive
historical assessment of the Ukrainian people.
It was back in 1993, two years before the release of his controversial book, that
Ignatieff produced the documentary mini-series Blood and Belonging for the BBC. The
series later aired in Canada on TVO, provoking a backlash from Ukrainian-Canadian
viewers who were insulted by Ignatieff’s portrayal of Ukrainian ethnic tribalism and its
alleged genetic proclivity towards anti-Semitism. His documentary had generated
enough of a backlash to warrant a panel discussion and viewer calls into TVO,
featuring among others, Canadian historian Orest Subtelny, who challenged Ignatieff’s
warped presentation of Ukrainian history. And what was Ignatieff’s response to these
criticisms?: “I am simply providing an unbiased analysis of Ukrainian nationalism.”
Before he needed our votes, Ignatieff, the historian, questioned the legitimacy of
Ukrainian independence, by writing in his book Blood and Belonging: My difficulty in
taking Ukraine seriously goes deeper than just my cosmopolitan suspicion of
nationalists everywhere. Somewhere inside, I’m also what Ukrainians would call a
Great Russian, and there is just a trace of old Russian disdain for these “little
Russians.” The thought of their independence conjured up only “images of
embroidered peasant shirts, the nasal whine of ethnic instruments, phony Cossacks in
cloaks and boots, nasty anti-Semites.”
Many of us wanted to give Ignatieff the benefit of the doubt, but his stubborn
arrogance underscores why the Bloc Quebecois recently called him “a scornful
aristocrat.” Last week, during his public appearance, there were ample opportunities
for Mr. Ignatieff to offer an apology for these remarks, but he chose not to amend his
position. Instead of recanting what he said, Mr. Ignatieff merely regrets how he said
it. Translation: I still think Ukrainians are nothing but misguided Little Russian
peasants who enjoy killing Jews, but I should have been more creative in how I said
it.
Ironically, while Michael Ignatieff refuses to withdraw the smear of anti-Semitism
which he places on Ukrainians, when in comes to dealing with his own Russian
ancestry, Ignatieff conveniently fails to address his family’s complicity in the Tsarist-
era pogroms. As The Canadian Encyclopedia: Historica recently pointed out, in his
family biography, entitled The Russian Album, Michael Ignatieff side-steps his great-
grandfather Count Nikolai Ignatiev’s role in running the pogroms in Tsarist Russia. It
was Count Nikolai who instituted the notorious anti-Jewish May Laws. Yet, according
to Michael Ignatieff, “rounding up all the Jews” was a necessity “to protect them from
outraged peasantry.” So much for historical objectivity.
So should Ukrainians ever expect Mr. Ignatieff to change his viewpoint? Not likely.
The fact is, Ignatieff’s opinion of Ukrainians is molded by his family’s Tsarist, imperial
past. Ignatieff’s great-grandfather, Count Nicholai, was said to be the richest man in
Europe who lost most of his money gambling in Monte Carlo . Ignatieff’s grandfather,
Pavel, was governor of Kyiv gubernia, and served as education minister to Nicholas II,
the last Tsar of Russia. The Ignatieff family has always seen Ukraine as nothing more
than a part of a once Great Russia . I am reminded of a public event I attended
decades ago at the University of Toronto where I shared a lengthy conversation with
Michael’s father, the late George Ignatieff. Having engaged George in a lively debate
on the issue of nuclear disarmament (he was disarmament ambassador under Liberal
PM John Turner), I mentioned that I was Ukrainian. George Ignatieff’s response was
sadly patronizing: “Oh, I have fond memories of that province,” he said. “I was just a
boy, but I still remember the peasant servant girl who worked on our family estate.
She was a kind and simple girl who used to sing the most wonderful songs.” Flash
forward twenty years and we see that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Michael Ignatieff may want to be Prime Minister, but real leadership requires a dose of
humility and political sensitivity that Ignatieff is dearly lacking. While no politician is
perfect, if I must choose between Ignatieff and Harper, I choose Harper. Not only has
the Prime Minister never insulted the Ukrainian people, in responding to the concerns
of the Ukrainian community, Harper has consistently delivered on issues that previous
government’s failed to address by providing millions of dollars in internment redress;
declaring unequivocal support for Ukraine’s right to NATO membership; and
recognizing the Holodomor-Famine as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.
Mr. Ignatieff, it’s time for you to realize that the days of Counts and serfs are long
gone. By refusing to recant your offensive views on Ukraine ’s historic struggle for
independence, you’ve failed to salvage your image in the eyes of the Ukrainian
community.
Christina S. Franko is a Canadian political scientist of Ukrainian origin.
t.e. & o.e.
tj
Who CARES which groups pioneered this country – we are all Canadians now and proud of it.
Remember Ignatieff’s educational background is in history. He did his thesis on the penal systems of London. His historic perspective on Canada had to do with his own family so he could proclaim himself somehow royal or elite because he had some industrious ancestors.
Again – who cares. The future is NOW – no matter what your origins and we cannot let this egotistical Liberal-speak try to divide us ever again.
But Lorraine, Ignatieff is a uniter and not a divider, at least that is what he said last night
Thanks for the link Kate!
does this also mean that Mikey now blames the francos for the tar sands foul up? does this also now not mean that the anglos and allos are all now off the hook on this count??
quelle marrroon our boy mikey.
tj
t.e.&o.e
JJM, that was tres humoristique!
Maybe Ignatieff should read the history of his adopted country. Just maybe.
Or shut up. I’m happy with either.
Maybe Iggy should withdraw all his books with stmts that offend someone from sale. LOL.
“In any event–if you want to play racist red-neck with your readers go ahead.”
Your comment (prefaced with: “I’m not Liberal–however”) started out sounding intelligent and then you write this.
I’ve been in the west for 3 years, coming from Quebec (and being able to speak French), and I’ve not seen one instance of anti-French sentiment here.
Maybe I have to dig deeper and into the realms of the perpetually offended to find why you use the word, “racist”. “Redneck” is OK, I won’t accuse you of anything for using that term.
The West has always been French, isn’t that why we named that Mont Trudeau?
“But it’s not for governments to say where the oil should flow,” he was quick to add.
He’s probably quite sincere, after all it’s really the flow of money that counts.
Maybe Ignatieff won’t have to put up with those darn French radical conservative Calgarians after all.
He was supposed to be at a Liberal Calgary Stampede breakfast at the zoo Friday morning but I read that he confirmed attendance at former GG LeBlanc’s funeral in New Brunswick Friday morning.
Choices. Choices Iggy. What to do?
East/West – where is the friendly media exposure best? Where will his expounding and acting and stupifying speechifying get him the most votes?
Oh sorry – I have that wrong. He will be at the Calgary Zoo on Saturday the 4th – LeBlanc’s funeral is Friday the 3rd.
He’ll have to use some Liberal Party airmiles to cross the country to do both.
Ignatieff is on a political Liberal party tour in the west so one would hope the taxpayers are not picking up any of the expences.
Why does it always sound like Iffy’s campaigning is always geared towards Quebeckers, even when he’s in the West.
Smooth move. But keep it up.
Not one drop of oil should flow east. Refined gas, diesel and other petro products yes. Lets keep the value added jobs out west. I do not want to see that cow cartoon agin, west feed the east and the east craps on the maritimes and NFDL.
Build the refineries here.
Newfoundland oil is closer to “the east” – it would make more rational economic sense to talk to Danny Williams about shipping to Ontario instead of the United States.
I’m sure Newfoundland would be happy to supply a refinery on the mainland for Ignatieff’s “the east” if another province wanted to build one.
There has not been a new refinery built in Canada for the past 25 years. I think Alberta has one under construction. Ontario could put those autoworkers back to work building their own.
Logical?
As for Ukrainians and ancestral anti-semitism:
Mickey I.: “It was just a Uke”
Mark
Ottawa
ET:
I thought the mention of the word “Radission and Co.” would have given you a hint on reality and timelines.
The large majority of hunters, trappers and buffalo hunter who would have been roaming the great plains and the forests of western Canada were French and Metis. You mentioned Rupert’s Land, let’s use the time line of 1670 to 1870.
All Hudson’s Bay fur trading posts, including Sam Hearne’s post at Cumberland House (1774) conducted their operations in French and English. I don’t believe they could have done otherwise. In 1821–the Northwest Company amalagamated with HBC.
The large majority of British immigrants arrived here after 1870 when Rupert’s Land and HBC’s territory were transferred to the new Government of Canada.
In any event–I’m not jumping to conclusions as to the gist of Iggy’s statement without seeing or hearing what led to his statement. I believe that the racist attitudes of many Conservatives–especially in Western Canada– have prevented us from electing a majority federal government, epsecially in the last federal election.
I’ve been a a card holding PC, Reform and CPC since 1980. I have to be honest. our chances of ever forming a majority are near nil until we get in sync with Eastern Canada.
PS: You may also want to read “Alberta Ardvark’s column a tad more carefully. He says that “about 450” people attended Iggy’s town hall meeting. In Alberta, and for a Liberal, that is a worrysome figure!! The next election will tell!!
Jack Frost:
I bet you more than half of the 450 people that attended the town hall meeting were media people trailing him and his entourage. 🙂
Gerry
“I’ve been a a card holding PC, Reform and CPC since 1980. I have to be honest. our chances of ever forming a majority are near nil until we get in sync with Eastern Canada”
hahaha, yup, git in sync with the EAST
raddy, lets just get rid of queeebec instead
What does “getting in sync with the east” mean?
Jack Frosst – how is the widely held view of the majority of Western Canadians that we are all equal and we don’t cater to sefmenting our society into hyphenated special interest groups “racist”????
The opposite is true.
the French had reached the Mackenzie Delta long before the Scots&others set foot past Montreal. But it still dont change CountIgor a bit, a RussianAmerican dork in the wrong country.
Do you folks think Ignatieff has a chance? I’m curious, because when I first read about him I thought “No way are the Canadians going to buy this guy. Why, he hasn’t even lived in Canada most of his adult life.”
Then I remembered that I thought people would see through Obama too.
“Peter Pond was possibly the first European to enter (1777) the Mackenzie drainage area, but Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the 19th-century Canadian explorer, was the first to descend (1789) the river to the Arctic Ocean.”
http://tinyurl.com/kteuju
I suspect that’s why it’s called the Mackenzie … doesn’t look like a French name.
jack frost – If you’ve been a card-holding PC, Reform and CPC member, then, could you explain how your views, as a Conservative, are ‘racist’? Thanks in advance.
I didn’t mention Rupert’s Land.
As for your insistence that the Hudson’s Bay Company was a bilingual institution, I doubt it. I think you need some proof beyond your opinion. And some proof that the ‘large majority’ of the buffalo hunters etc were French.
Again, what does defining the country of origin of settlers have to do with racism?
So far, as Radisson or Jack Frost – you haven’t answered any questions.
To be fair, I think most (if not all) missionaries in the early West were French speaking priests. The language didn’t catch – the religion did. There are towns named after some of them.
There are a couple of French communities in Alberta … Bon Accord was/is one of them (I haven’t been there for about 20 years).
Do we really have to do stats? Do 14 French baggage carriers really trump 50,000, 100,000, 1,000,000, 3,000,000, etc
“the west has always been french, never forget that”
You know, I’ve suspected for years that I didn’t get the straight dope about Canada when I was in school, and this confirms it. I was taught that, while Canada, like the United States, had been populated by immigrants from dozens of countries, Quebec was the only part that could be considered “French”, at least in the sense of being primarily francophone. I can see now that I was right to distrust what I was taught. I wonder what I’ll have to unlearn next – that the sun rises in the east? that the earth is approximately spherical?
Jack Frosst says “until we get in sync with Eastern Canada”.
We appreciate your memberships, but this comment is part of the problem here in the west. We are continually supposed to cater to the East in whatever nonsense it comes up with. We are no longer colonies of Toronto and Montreal. Dion came very close to reigniting western separatism.
How does this square with what you were taught about Lewis and Clark?
http://tinyurl.com/mkobej
ural:
La Verendrye and others were in the SaskRiver area in 1730s..a mixup of rivers iguess.
La Verendrye? Manitoba isn’t the West.
Correction – Manitoba isn’t even in the West.
have fun arguing with yourself
I like the way Iggles manages simultaneously to come off as:
a) an entitled european feudal ancestrally-serf-owning condescending aristo snob (think Gene Wilder in The Young Frankenstein) and:
b) a grabby pushy Yank!
And both are true!
He’s so awful that he WILL be our next P.M.
Thompson, Mackenzie, Hearne, Pond, Fraser, Henday, Kelsey.These are the “french” white guys who opened the west.
French were there as well. Different times.
Grand Tetons, Wyoming.
‘Grand Tetons’ was, and still is, French slang for ‘Big Hooters’ [female mammaries of vast and appealing proportions, especially for those ancient canoe-paddling french fur-traders long from home and far from the comely lasses with their come-hither charms, and the warmth of sweet Pierrette, Suzette, Fifif, Mimi or Marie.]
ahhh, oui!! oo-la-la & hubba-hubba!
tj
t.e. & o.e.
I knew a guy who had a map of Canada tattooed on his ass.
No, really.
Every time he sat down, Quebec separated.
(bada-BUMP)
ET:
You want to play “historian,” go write you own history book, as most political fanatics have done in “Rupert`s Land” aka Western Canada for the last 200 years! Don`t forget–there are many epople in Alberta who still deny that the WWII Holocaust ever happened. Would it be hard for them to deny a few French settlements? I doubt it.
“Don`t forget–there are many epople in Alberta who still deny that the WWII Holocaust ever happened.”—- Yeah,and we rednecks call them muslims.
Jack Frosst = kook.
Have you checked out the liberal or ndp parties?
I didn’t read all the post because it involved a Lib. Yet, it has to be said that French trappers and adventurers were crawling all over the U. S. well before many western states were incorporated.
Can’t say for Canadian provinces but know there were family units living on the literal edge up in the Great Lakes area and west through the Rockies and Sierras. Might I add they were NOT living with any degree of style. Catholic priests commissioned to establish missions on the American frontier in the late 18th early 19th centuries would find their way to these outposts to perform overdue marriages and other critical religious rites. Brave and curious folks back then.
Having said all that, while there are many towns carrying French monikers to this day, the primary French bastians reside in Eastern Canada and Southern Louisiana. There’s also French Guiana in South America but that’s another story.