For those of you who blinked last week, you missed a brilliant statement by Michael Ignatieff about the potential new Liberal party mascot. The Grits were out on a whalewatching tour in Newfoundland when deputy Liberal leader told accompanying media how thoroughly impressed he is by puffins, a group of which was apparently flocking nearby.
“It’s a noble bird because it has good family values. They stay together for 30 years. I’m not kidding. They lay one egg and they put their excrement in one place. They hide their excrement!” he beamed. “They flap their wings very hard and they work like hell. This seems to me a symbol for what our party should be.”
Mr. Ignatieff’s light-hearted humour has bemused Canadians familiar with his party’s record and his own past. Apparently the best way to impress voters is to flap your wings, appearing to work very hard. And while no one likes to make personal jabs, Mr. Ignatieff is just begging for it in praising the monogamy of the puffin. He has been married twice.
But perhaps the fact that the puffins hide their excrement is their most admirable deed, at least in the eyes of the former wannabe Liberal leader. When Mr. Ignatieff suggested that the puffin should be the symbol for the Liberal party, it is difficult to not recall the sponsorship scandals his party so thoroughly failed to cover up. It seems that Mr. Ignatieff only regrets that the Liberals are not better at hiding their dirty messes.
While the Liberals continue to puff up their political campaign, what voters are looking for is a real contribution to prove the Liberals can indeed assume responsibility for governing this country instead of mere “flapping”. That, Mr. Ignatieff, not flapping around and hiding its shit, should be the focus of the Liberal Party of Canada.
