A Humbled Worthy

The assured arrogance of entitlement that once alternated with a thespian folksiness of an aristocrat submitting to the relaxed demeanor of the man of the people has dissipated. Reality set in with its stunning effects. For no one could really have visualized what the federal election of 2011 for the 41st Parliament of Canada would result in. Certainly not the decimation of that venerable old party, the Liberals.

Fallen now to a historical low. For the first time in its history no longer either the governing party or the temporary set-back of the official opposition. The Liberal Party of Canada has always enjoyed its eternal headquarters either at 24 Sussex Drive or at Stornoway. Now neither of these official residences welcomes it to enjoy yet another stay. Banished to obscurity, a back-handed slap at its manifest destiny.

No longer wither goes Canada goes the Liberal Party.

Canada has veered off on a direction that has left the Liberal party at rather loose ends, confused and forlorn. When the man who has been anointed leader in the wake of too many leadership failures, enticed back home to Canada to deliver the party once again to its natural place of governance is unable to hold on to his own Parliamentary seat, no longer a Member of Parliament, there is nowhere lower to stumble.

Michael Ignatieff delivered a wonderfully heartfelt speech accepting responsibility for the failure of his party to increase the number of its seats, to overtake the Conservatives and install itself back into governance. Surely the responsibility was not all, entirely his alone. The party has failed to ignite itself back into the minds of Canadians, after too many opportunities were worn too thin by a sense of entitlement they were no longer entitled to embrace.

In that regard Mr. Ignatieff was a perfect fit. His constant complaints that Prime Minster Stephen Harper was disdaining democracy reflected his own lapses in spurning democratic action for acclamation. And Mr. Ignatieff's spontaneous warning to Mr. Harper that his "time was up" as prime minister and as his adversary he was prepared to assume that position was stunningly premature.

As was his uninspired decision to lay himself and his party open to disaster through the rash decision to bring down the government on a pretext of censure, when the Liberals were still a long way from being prepared to mount a serious challenge to the Conservatives. When poll after poll demonstrated the insipid rating of the Liberals as opposed to the robust rating of the Conservatives.

Choosing their time badly; when the economy was just recovering and on a steady course; when the party was still in disarray; when the electorate clearly had not reached a flattering opinion of Mr. Ignatieff; when Canadians stated unequivocally they were content to permit this effective minority government to continue - for no one wanted the imposition of an election.

The outcome of this election, under those circumstances, with its $300-million price tag, can only be described as "just desserts". But Mr. Ignatieff's speech was humble, and moving, and beautifully and earnestly delivered, a tour de force of quietly passionate remorse.