Capital Gains
Zoomer |
April 23rd, 2009
Photo by Bryan Adams
“Nice shoes.”
I’m standing in the lobby of a Yorkville condo. The man with an eye for footwear is Michael Ignatieff, Liberal Leader and leader of the official Opposition. The shoes are a mix of black satin and patent leather with four-inch heels — in other words, shoes that were designed to be noticed. That he noted them and complimented me is in stark contrast to the “aloof” and “pompous” descriptions I’ve read about him in various press reports — although the fact that his nickname, Iggy, is less than grand should have provided a clue that those labels may be misleading.
“Look at those, Zsuzsanna,” he gestures to my feet. His wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, 61, agrees; the shoes are nice. Wearing a red dress paired with a red Yves Saint Laurent jacket (procured from her favourite second-hand shop in the neighbourhood), she is obviously no slouch in the fashion department.
We follow Ignatieff to the elevator. He walks ahead of us, as leaders do, but it’s a recent habit that, Zsohar would tell me later, has begun to annoy her. Topcoat and fedora in hand, he exudes a slightly aristocratic
air combined with professorial schlumpiness. Once on the elevator, he doesn’t make eye contact. Perhaps his detractors are correct after all; he is distant and aloof. Then again, I’m a journalist. I’m probably the most dreaded part of his day. Zsohar, in contrast, is warm, ebullient and chatty, like a best girlfriend. However, she is well aware of the vibe her husband can give off; she was quoted in the Toronto Star that on first meeting him, “He was grumpy … and he was not very nice.”
Inside their condo, I’m struck by how normal
it is. No opulence, no showcase for his slew of honorary degrees, Gemini or Governor
General’s awards, no staff. The condo is homey, furnished with a modern leather sofa, lounge chair and bookcase and has a small open-concept kitchen where Ignatieff heads straight for the cookie jar. But Zsohar isn’t having it. She shoos him away toward the leather lounger. “She wants me to go to work,” he says with a mock grimace, meaning
our interview.
Getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar is something his political opponents have accused Ignatieff of ever since he was parachuted in to win his seat in the Etobicoke-Lake-shore riding in 2006. After all, this tall, dark (okay, greying) and handsome 61-year-old Canadian returned to his homeland almost four years ago after a 27-year absence and is already the leader of our “natural governing party” and will be, he hopes, our next prime minister.
Reams of articles, blogs and television news bites have told his story, but in case a refresher is needed: Ignatieff was born on May 12, 1947, to a Canadian diplomat and the daughter of a Canadian intellectual dynasty. His paternal grandfather was a count and his grandmother a princess, both in the court of Russia’s last czar; his book The Russian Album traces these aristocratic roots. He has written 17 books, made documentaries, hosted a British television series and was a well-respected journalist before taking the position of director at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, his alma mater. There he caused no small controversy by writing articles in support of the Iraq war. But then as the story goes, he got the call to come home and join the Liberal Party, to run in a byelection — maybe there would be a role in the cabinet. But after then-Prime Minister Paul Martin stepped down, it was no holds barred.
I’m sitting with Ignatieff to discuss his latest book, True Patriot Love, a work of nonfiction that reads in equal parts as history lesson, family album and political manifesto. While no stranger to writing about his mother (his Booker Prize-nominated novel Scar Tissue was inspired by her struggle with Alzheimer’s disease), this time, he traces his maternal lineage from a Canadian historical perspective. And an impressive one it is. His great-grandfather George Munro Grant traversed our nation coast to coast with railway engineer Sandford Fleming in 1872 and wrote of his expedition the following year in the book Ocean to Ocean. He then went on to be principal of Queen’s University in Kingston and is credited with transforming it from a Bible college to the national institution it is today. Ignatieff’s grandfather William Lawson Grant taught at Oxford and wrote a biography of his father before fighting at the Somme during the First World War. He then became principal of Upper Canada College in Toronto. Ignatieff’s uncle, George Parkin Grant, also studied at Oxford and spent the Second World War in Britain, before returning to Canada where he became a philosopher and public intellectual, writing his controversial book Lament for a Nation in 1965.
Such impressive ancestry goes a long way to explain Ignatieff’s journey. His pursuit of knowledge, his carefully carved intellectual life, his drive to study and live abroad and his interest in politics are all genetic — the man can’t help himself. If he were a thoroughbred racehorse, he was bred to win the Triple Crown. And with the first two races — public intellectual and journalist, and professor — both won by a mile, the final jewel in his aspirational crown, the highest office in his home and native land, remains to be conquered.
In reading the book, it’s easy to assume that the author’s motive is to silence once and for all the criticisms that he’s somehow less Canadian because of his years living in Britain and the U.S.A. But ask him why he wrote the book, and he counters: “It’s a very personal family book. It’s about my people. It’s an homage to my mother. I wrote Russian Album years ago because there was something exotic about having a Russian immigrant past. My mother’s past seemed less glamorous at that time. Now I see how wrong I was.”
When I give him my racehorse analogy, he smiles and shakes his head. “That’s kind of you to say. But nobody has a claim to be the prime minister of the country,”he states flatly. “Nobody’s past entitles them to anything. You have to earn it. That’s how a democracy works. You have to earn it one handshake at a time and one vote at a time.”
Quietly, Zsohar returns, having dashed out for a cappuccino for him and a tea for me along with a plate of the coveted cookies, broken into halves for sharing.
True Patriot Love may be an homage to his mother, but doesn’t it also set down Ignatieff’s political vision for Canada?
The answer is yes and no. In the final chapter, he writes, “The Grants took it upon themselves to pose, and then to answer central question facing the country of their day.” Which begs the obvious: What is our central question? According to Ignatieff, the question and answer lies in determining national projects, our generation’s Canadian Pacific Railway. Such as? “Energy corridors; high-speed rail between Windsor and Quebec City; it would be broadband for everybody,” he answers enthusiastically.
But then he pauses — the professor inhabits the politician — and he adds, “I think for a variety of reasons, some of them perfectly understandable, we walked away from the politics of national vision because Quebec almost separated, because we had a deficit. There were good reasons to play it safe in the ’90s, and there may appear to be reasons to play it safe now because we’re going into another huge deficit.
Then the politician with a vision is back, and he wants to convince. “I always say this: I would like to be the prime minister of Canada. What is his job? He has one job: to pull the country together,” he explains. “To make us all feel more Canadian and more united at the end of his time in office than when he started. How do you do that? French, English, Aboriginal. West, east, north, south. Urban, rural. Every day, I’m aware of the staggering diversity and complexity of the interests you’re trying to hold together in a common project. I’m not so deluded to think there’s a compromise that will work in every case. But the start premise is how do we keep everyone in the room? How do we keep everyone talking to each other? Because at the end of the day, we have to live with each other.”
But at this point in his leadership, it isn’t only the voting public that has to live with each other but the battle-fatigued Liberal Party itself. One of the major challenges that he faces going into the Biennial Liberal Convention in Vancouver from April 30 to May 2 is bringing his party up to speed, to enter the Obama era in terms of utilizing the Internet and the collection of data and, most vitally, creating a new party platform for the next election. He has already demonstrated his knack for good political judgment by shrewdly removing himself from the coalition debacle this past winter.
Still, it must be a relief to him that he enters the convention as the de facto leader and will not be faced with a challenge for the leadership, such as the upset in 2006 when St�phane Dion took the reins. And, of course, there’s the very necessary priority of increasing support. “We need to be a mass-based party. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be a million members strong, and we’re well short of that. We want to give people a sense that being a member of a party means something and delivers real participation and the making of policies that will govern a country.”
“There is a change happening that I’ve never seen, and I’ve been a member of the party since I was 12,” explains Dr. Ruby Dhalla, now 35, and the MP for Brampton-Springdale since 2004 and the current Opposition critic for youth and multiculturalism. She has been a supporter of Ignatieff since his leadership bid in 2006, acting as his national co-chair. “Growing up, all you knew in the Liberal Party was the in-fighting. Michael has been able to end that. When you can bring people together, working for one cause as one team, wanting to move forward united, you know he’s in the process of creating great change.”
One of the great changes that Ignatieff has instituted is setting member and donor targets for MPs by insisting that they maintain at least 400 party members and a minimum of 40 Victory Fund donors who agree to dole out $10 or more a month. This may be tougher than it sounds, given the hard fact that Liberal MPs account for only 77 of the 308 ridings. When asked how she feels about the new targets, Dhalla is enthusiastic. “To be honest, it’s great to see a leader who has brought in focus, structure and discipline. Every party, at the end of the day, has to have outcomes, you have to have productivity and you have to have results. He’s running the party as it should be run.”
If all this focus on cash sounds crass, this isn’t greed we’re talking about but party survival. “The brutal truth is in politics money matters a lot.
The Tories have more than $20 million in the bank and a devoted base that sends money on a regular basis,” explains Rick Mercer, the comedian and political satirist whos television show, The Rick Mercer Report, ran a segment where he helped the couple move into Stornoway, the official residence of the leader of the Opposition. “The Liberal Party is broke, and the fundraising machine
is broken as well. Iggy’s first priority has to be fixing that. It’s a tough job but these things can turn around very quickly. [In February] Iggy raised 80 grand at a dinner
in Edmonton. That’s very, very telling. That’s Harper’s territory. I’m sure the Prime Minister kicked a chair when he read that little nugget.”
According to Dhalla, Edmonton was no isolated incident. “Michael is raising a tremendous amount of money on a daily basis,”she confirms. “People go out there and initiate events, and you see and feel a sense of enthusiasm, a sense of excitement across the country for the party that I haven’t seen in a very long time. Across Canada, there is a huge appetite for hope.”
Hope has won support, coming as it did as the key message in President Barack Obama’s campaign. The political tide has turned. Enter then, the new era of intellectual idealist as politician. Capitalizing on this appetite for hope is something Ignatieff wants to do with his highly anticipated leadership speech, which caps off the convention. “When you went to the doors last October, people said they didn’t know what the party stands for anymore,” he says. “The irony was we had too much policy, not enough principle, not enough vision. So I have to give a speech that says, ‘Here’s what it is to be a Liberal. Here’s where we’re going.'”
With the Liberals in dire need of revamping, it’s natural that party members and the public alike would wish for a leader with the charisma of an Obama or a Pierre Trudeau. Comparisons are inevitable. The U.S. president and Ignatieff are, like the former prime minister was, telegenic intellectual Harvard graduates, professors and, to some extent, outsiders. But the jury is still out on the scale of Ignatieff’s charisma and on whether his speeches will ever reach the soaring oratory sensations of Obama or if he will inspire anything resembling Trudeaumania. However, in what may be a sign of things to come, by the third week in March, a Nanos Research poll found that 36 per cent of Canadians would vote for the Grits, compared to 33 per cent for the Tories — a mild upward trend of three per cent from the previous month.
“I haven’t heard too many Liberals championing Ignatieff’s charisma, which is a good thing,” explains Mercer. “If Liberals start pushing Iggy as super charismatic before Canadians have made up their own mind, they will sound like they are trying to set us up on a blind date with a desperate friend.” Still, even those from opposing sides are excited by his political career thus far. “It’s fantastic when people who are accomplished and have a track record of success make this transition,” says Jaime Watt, a political strategist and former senior communications adviser for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. “We should encourage more of these types of people to enter public service. There’s been a fundamental shift in the electorate. We’re in an economic situation we’ve never been in before, and people want solutions that we’ve never had before. It’s a post-partisan world.”
Ignatieff supporters also like to point out his other side, beyond the vaunted career. For example, his compassion. Says Dhalla, “He is a very warm and caring individual. You only have to see how he treats his wife to get that. He and Zsuzsanna have an incredibly close relationship and, when you see them together, it’s an inspiration because of the love and bond that they share.”
She has a point. To see Ignatieff in the company of Zsohar is to witness a man in love. The distance recedes. The ice melts. And he’s unexpectedly funny, with a dry sense of humour that is a Canadian classic.
“I’m very devoted to Zsuzsanna, and sometimes we feel like our life has been taken over by an alien force. The alien force consists of 20-year-olds who say, ‘We just have one more meeting that we’d like you to do.’ And I think, ‘Man, I’m going home, I’m taking off my shoes, I’m getting a glass a wine and I’m going to watch the ball game, and you can all go to hell,’ ” says Ignatieff. It doesn’t take more than five minutes with Zsohar to understand the attraction. She is a striking woman. Hidden behind her signature glasses is a bone structure that’s all high cheekbones and wide set eyes. She is petite yet leggy. Her manicure is perfect; her nails are painted red — Liberal red. Then there’s the aforementioned warmth. She wants you to feel at ease. Her years as a highly successful publicist have honed her social skills for every situation and every personality. “You call him Michael,” she instructs me when I keep referring to her husband as Mr. Ignatieff.
“He’s always been Michael to me. He is Michael to you.” She sits down with me for a few moments — I have already stayed well past my allotted time — settling into the same large leather lounger that Ignatieff has just vacated. What does she make of all this? “First of all, [Canadians] are extremely respectful of your privacy, which is wonderful,” she says. No doubt a stark contrast to the rabid London tabloids, which had a field day when Ignatieff left his first wife for her in 1993. He has two children, Theo and Sophie, now in their 20s, from that marriage.”He chose to be a politician. Therefore, Michael’s life, to some extent, is public property. Whatever he does — and rightfully so — will be publicly scrutinized. But I haven’t been elected. So I’m very careful of voicing my opinions because I haven’t been elected to speak on those issues.”
During our chat, Ignatieff darts in and out of the room, rolling his eyes at the mention of her love of ABBA or giving a dismissive wave when she mentions her favourite sport, show jumping. It is clear this couple loves to tease each other. But, ABBA and horses aside, most of their passions are shared.
“Many people know that Michael reads to me. I had an eye operation that was completely botched. So I have great trouble reading. But it is very nice. And we’re great walkers,” she says. Classical and jazz music they agree on; concerts and art exhibits keep them pounding the pavement.
One weekend in Ottawa, they managed to steal away from official duties to take in the Bernini exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada. Well known for her cooking skills, when asked if her husband knows his way around the kitchen, she smiles. “Michael is not bad. He’s good at simple kid stuff like mashed potatoes.” Both she and Ignatieff appear healthy, fit and younger than they are. Part of the secret may be her role as fitness coach.
“We do a little exercise routine that I based on my school in Hungary. There, every child had to do calisthenics. Now I’m the school mistress drilling him to stretch!” Joanne Shurvell, a Canadian woman based in London, has been their friend since 1999. She rented the couple’s Shore-ditch loft for five years while Ignatieff was at Harvard. Shurvell sees Zsohar as a tireless worker and Ignatieff as decent and always interested in people. And as a couple? “It works,” she says via email. “Partly because they met in their 40s as experienced adults. It’s also because they fit so well as a couple and have many of the same interests.” Two days later, I’m at Stornoway. As she was back in Toronto, Zsohar is warm and chatty. Ignatieff, too, is more comfortable, less cautious. They give me a tour of the house with some history tossed in, pointing out some of the more interesting artwork as well as their own personal touches, such as a framed map of the Newfoundland coastline, and a herd of African wildlife carved from wood that once graced his grandmother’s
house and is mentioned with reverence in True Patriot Love. When we spoke, Zsohar explained her role in Ignatieff’s political life. “I’m very happy to sign up with all my ability to help him — but within self-imposed limits. We talk [about what’s going on] because he’s upfront and maybe I can see certain things he’s not able to. And sometimes I’m critical, and it may not always be welcomed. But that’s how it works if you’re being honest.”
During the shoot, she called out, “Don’t let him wear that jumper,” then asked to hold the offending sweater lest it found its way on his back. (Too bad Laureen Harper wasn’t on hand to nix Stephen’s misguided leather vest.) Ignatieff deflected such light-hearted criticism with an affectionate wisecrack. The banter is classic Ignatieff-Zsohar. This is a couple with enough chemistry to light the downtown core. When Zsohar emerges later, having changed for their portrait, his face lights up. “Who is that femme fatale?” he says with a smile, and throws his arms around her. “I like your shoes,” he adds. “They’re 10 years old!” she scolds him.
While she is careful about voicing her opinion on matters of public policy, she has seen openings in her husband’s political sphere where she can make a difference. For one, she has hopes of creating a library at a hospice in Ignatieff’s riding, she says, for the use of patients and their families.
And she has great plans for Stornoway. “It lends itself extremely well to bringing together people who would like to discuss something in a more relaxed fashion,” she says as we stand in one of the many parlours.
“I would like to facilitate that. Not to take over. To get the people there and then allow them to speak.”
In the third last line of True Patriot Love, Ignatieff writes, “… the question of who we are is never settled and that we rise to our best when we allow ourselves to imagine ourselves anew.” He is writing about Canada, but he could have easily been speaking of his own life. Given that he is at the beginning of this third high profile career, you’ve got to wonder: he’s healthy, successful and in love, so my final question to him is why not simply retire? He chuckles, “Good question. I suppose I’ve had a life as a writer, a life as a teacher and now a life as a politician. And I love the business of reinvention. I think I’ve been very consistent — it’s variations on a theme, rather than chameleon-like. In my high-school yearbook, I say I want to be a journalist and politician. So it’s been very continuous, but I’ve reinvented myself when I felt I stopped learning.”
— Kim Izzo
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