Latest news with #MichaelIgnatieff
Washington Post
02-06-2025
- General
- Washington Post
Hungary's leader came for my university. Now Trump is coming for Harvard.
Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian historian, was president and rector of Central European University from 2016 to 2021. The Trump administration's attacks on Harvard University and higher education are the most serious assault on academic freedom in American history. Nothing compares to it: not the clampdown on free speech during World War I, not Sen. Joseph McCarthy's harassment of professors in the 1950s. The administration has demanded control over hiring and curriculum, canceled billions in federal research funding, and, most recently, wants to annul the university's ability to accept foreign students.
National Post
25-04-2025
- Politics
- National Post
Colby Cosh: Mark Carney and the next lost decade
What do you suppose it is like to be Michael Ignatieff right now? Gosh, he must really think the good Lord has it out for him. In 2006, as a stylish liberal intellectual with a star reputation in Europe, he rolled up his sleeves and ran for the Commons seat in Etobicoke — Lakeshore. His ultimate ambitions were no secret, but he thought he had better learn the ropes first, get yelled at on a few doorsteps and absorb the sights and scents of an actual Canadian neighbourhood. In 2009, the suffering Liberals turned to him as a new leader and anointed saviour, with other dignitaries flinging themselves out of his path to make way. Article content Article content Article content As you'll recall, this didn't go at all well for them, even in Etobicoke — Lakeshore. And, of course, Ignatieff immediately cleared out of Canada altogether, having learned that the moment just wasn't right for a national rescuer-figure on horseback. I've pointed out specifically that Ignatieff had truancy problems that today's Liberal leader doesn't, but he did, after all, attempt to serve a parliamentary apprenticeship. He knew it wasn't customary to barge into the Commons for the first time already clothed in the power of a prime minister. He was aware that the keys to the kingdom wouldn't simply be tossed to him in desperation. Poor devil. Article content Article content The political polls suggest that … well, things may have changed since the Count's college try. I am very agnostic about the Canadian polling profession, and this is not just because I am a migrainous, despairing middle-aged Albertan whose youth was spent bathing in the weird cauldron of the Reform party. Even if you are willing to give our pollsters a few tons of benefit of the doubt on ethics, they are working in a Canadian environment of preposterous data poverty, period. Article content Article content Assuming they're not 'herding' inveterately, mistakenly following the scent of each other's bovine flatulence, and assuming they're not just torturing their mid-election numbers with an eye to future work contracts, there are inherent limits to the resolving power of their forecasts. In Canada, these limits are as low as it goes. And, frankly, I've read a few times too often in recent years about hair-raising last-minute surprises in other countries' elections. Article content Article content But surprises can go both ways, and there can be no doubt that the current election has been affected by an illiberal mood of post-Trump panic. The Canadian conservative movement has been punching itself in the face because the federal party's current brain trust prepared for an election that was going to involve heavy litigation over a decade of harmful, sophomoric, economically stagnant Liberal government.
