Moral Imbecile Linda McQuaig running for NDP nomination in Toronto Centre

Linda McQuaig on TVO (via YouTube)

Linda McQuaig is something worse than just a moral relativist. She's a moral imbecile. Yesterday the sometime Toronto Star columnist declared her intent to bring her vacuity and hyperbolic peevishness to Canada's House of Commons on behalf of the New Democratic Party.

The riding's Parliamentary seat was recently left vacant by the retirement of former Liberal Party leader Bob Rae.

McQuaig is an ideologue who has campaigned against outlooks outside her narrow reasoning being taught at the University of Toronto. As the author of The Trouble with Billionaires, McQuaig presents a caricature of billionaires, suggesting that she knows very few, if any of them and even less about how they operate. One can envision vapid Occupy Wall Street-type rhetoric given a voice on Parliament Hill in the unlikely event McQuaig should be elected.

Her understanding of economics is predicated on her only looking for data that substantiates her polemical ideology. She bases her arguments on economics on the post-World War 2 growth period and attributing the economic success of those times to high tax rates while effectively discounting  the myriad of other factors that played a greater role.

But in that she only demonstrates a tremendous lack of insight. It is her lack of human decency that is far more troubling.

In 2010, nine Turkish activists attempting to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza strip were killed when they, along with a mob, attacked Israeli troops attempting to board the Mavi Marmara. 

That ship was the largest of seven boats in a small flotilla attempting to break a sea blockade of Gaza that was intercepted by Israel. The blockade is in place to prevent arms smuggling to Gaza, which is controlled by the terror group Hamas. Gaza is the world's largest per-capita recipient of aid and has one of the highest obesity rates on Earth.

There were no casualties on any of the other ships and the Mavi Marmara was the only one in which activists attacked the Israelis. The activists were part of a Turkish group called IHH that has known links to terror organizations. It's members who attacked the Israeli soldiers were self-declared jihadis who had expressed their desire for martyrdom.

At the time of that event, McQuaig equated those killings to that of Leon Klinghoffer by Palestinian terrorists. Klinghoffer was a helpless, innocent wheelchair-bound civilian travelling on a pleasure craft,  Achile Lauro, that was hijacked. He was murdered in cold blood by terrorists for no other reason than for being a Jew.

"There is a compelling need for a serious, UN-mandated investigation of these killings, which are as horrific as the killing on the Achille Lauro," wrote McQuaig.

Only a reprehensible moral imbecile could possibly equate his callous murder to the chaotic attempts at self-defense by a handful of Israeli commandos who were attacked and overwhelmed by dozens of knife and pipe wielding jihadist thugs.

Linda McQuaig is that reprehensible moral imbecile who wants to make her loathsome perspectives the voice of the Toronto Centre riding and the New Democratic Party of Canada.

Given some of the other voices in the NDP,  it would be shameful, but no great shock if she were successful.

As he prepares to hand the reins to the Liberal Party's Prince Joffrey, Bob Rae compares Harper government to Animal Farm

If Bob Rae read Orwell, it appears he didn't understand it very well. I like the Bobster, but the thoughtless partisanship you get from every Liberal MP is not something that instills much confidence in their ability to lead the country.

Orwell's "Animal Farm" is about the corruption of a revolution - Harper's treatment of Kevin Page and his MP's shows howReform has fallen
— Bob Rae (@bobraeMP) April 1, 2013

As Justin Trudeau, the Liberal's Prince Joffrey, a man with his father's name but only a pale shadow of his abilities, readies himself to take dynastic throne, the Liberals are in for some major humiliation.

The Conservatives were able to make men of great intellect like Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff look like fools. Trudeau the younger has already given them a considerable head start.

Marc Garneau is the Liberals' only hope

With Bob Rae announcing today he will not seek the Liberal leadership, it seems the right moment to post a link to a piece I wrote back in October 2010 about how Marc Garneau is the only chance the Liberals have to revive themselves for the next election.

If only they had listened to me last time!

And if the Liberals think the Conservative attack ads they faced against Stephane Dion, Michael Ignatieff and now Bob Rae were tough, wait to see what happens if they are suicidal enough to put Justin Trudeau in charge of the party.

Bob Rae's next moves will determine whether Canada's Liberal Party sinks or swims

On of the interesting facets of the distortions of reality put forward out of political partisanship is that the politicians who speak them seem to have no idea how badly they can backfire.

Liberal leader Bob Rae's recent claim that the New Democratic Party's new supremo Thomas Mulcair is a "mini-Harper" could be just one of those watershed indicators of just how much trouble Canada's "natural governing party" is in these days.

Canada's federal Liberals used to be the New York Yankees of politics. They were in government more than any other political party in a democracy during the 20th Century. They managed that through a combination of factors, including the good luck to face weak and divided opposition parties for many years. But the one thing that spelled success for them most was their positioning themselves as centrists.

That has changed in the last few years since the defeat of Paul Martin's government in 2006 by current Prime Minister Stephen Harper. If centrism was their defining characteristics, then power was their defining motivation. It worked to the Liberals' advantage that while their opponents of the left and right were hampered by guiding ideologies and principles that prevented them from being too flexible in what they could promise voters.

The Liberals felt no such constraints and would tell audiences whatever they wanted to hear, often contradicting themselves from message to message. The justification being that they were the most capable and sensible party, therefore if the public had to be misled in order for them to be sensibly governed, so be it. That was the thought process behind outright campaign lies, like Pierre Trudeau's promise not to impose wage and price controls when he ran against Bob Stanfield, (and broke that promise within weeks of being elected)  or his forcing an election to supposedly fight Joe Clark's proposal for an excise tax on gasoline, and then, once elected,  rapidly impose a higher one than Clark had proposed. And who could forget Jean Chretien's infamous campaign lie that he would abolish the GST?

These are tough days for the Liberals. After Martin's palace coup against Chretien, they have struggled to find that centrist voice and abandoned the territory to a shrewd Conservative leadership. Somehow, the leadership of the Liberal Party has deluded itself into thinking that most Canadians despise the Harper Conservatives as much as they do. That comes across in just about everything they say, and as part of their fantasy that Harper represents the "far right wing," the Liberals have positioned themselves out of the centre into a leftist stance that has alienated them from their natural voting base.

The two Liberal leaders before Rae proved the folly of that approach, and he seems to have learned little or nothing from their failures. Stephane Dion's "Green" policies and his own "not up to the job" image led to a major defeat for the party. It wasn't just Michael Ignatieff's inability to connect with voters, but his show of taking the Liberals further to the left that resulted in their worst defeat ever, putting them for the first time in 3rd party status.

Now, by calling Mulcair a "mini-Harper," Mr. Rae seems to be flailing about positioning the Liberals to even the left of the socialist New Democrats.

So how can the Liberals correct the disastrous course on which they are currently headed?

They obviously, and with good reason, fear that Mulcair has the image of an intelligent leader who is going to move the NDP to a more centrist and for voters, more palatable position.

That may be true for Mulcair, but Bob Rae needs only to draw upon his experience as the first NDP Premier of Ontario to know that Canada's socialist party has no bench strength beyond the leadership, and that their ineptitude and radicalism are fertile grounds for attack.

Mulcair has surrounded himself with incompetents like Libby Davies, who embraces 9-11 conspiracy theorists, violent radicals, and anti-Semitic forces out to destroy Israel. He has Joe Comartin, who associates with Khomeinist hatemongers like Zafar Bangash and George Galloway. Add to the mix, Peggy Nash who shows no capacity for economic management and a host of other embarrassments, and that is what the real NDP has to offer. And this represents the top of the party. One doesn't have to go much further down the list until you get to the NDP's inept Miss Las Vegas.

If Bob Rae and the Liberal Party want to reposition themselves for Canadian voters, he needs to turn off the left turn signal and realize that he is not going to successfully rebuild the Liberals and  differentiate himself from Stephen Harper by leading a party that is more radical than that of Libby Davies.

NDP Leader Mulcair flip-flops on marijuana decriminalization

More here

It's an interesting world where NDP leader Mulcair is siding with Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper on this issue while Liberal Leader Bob Rae is on the same side as TV evangelist Pat Robertson

The importance of attack ads in our political process

A silly debate that never disappears from the political scene is whether "attack ads" should be allowed.

Aside from the free speech component of the matter that make attack ads constitutionally protected, the motives of people opposed to them is rather transparent. It's because the candidates they support are vulnerable to them. The previous two Liberal leaders were particularly harmed by attack ads in Canada's last two national elections.

Stephane Dion was the target of a very effective Conservative ad campaign leading up to the 2008 election that portrayed him as "not up to the job" of being a leader. Michael Ignatieff was similarly harmed in the 2011 election by being successfully characterized as an elitist who was "just visiting" Canada for the sake of  personal ambition.



The raucous nature of political campaigns are really about pointing out not just the advantages of one side, but the deficits of the other. This relatively minor test of fire is an important element of the election process for a very basic and obvious reason. If a candidate who wants to lead a country is incapable of dealing with an attack ad from a fairly benign domestic political rival, how could they possibly function as a leader on the world stage, dealing with potentially hostile foreign interests?

In that sense, attack ads are the most basic test someone who wants to be put in a position of power and responsibility should be able to overcome. If they can't, they have no busness asking millions of Canadians to entrust them with that responsibility.

Canada's New Democratic Party again proves they have earned the name The Wormtongues

Do you ever get the feeling that Canada's New Democratic Party possess the intelligence and competence of the mutant family from The Hills Have Eyes?

The greatest leader the New Democratic Party of Canada never had

Having fluked their way into Official Opposition status through the collapse of the Bloc Quebecois, were it not for the Conservative majority, Canada narrowly avoided having this gang of inept buffoons being able to exert real power over governmental affairs.


The most recent example of just how bad things could have been were the NDP to ever acquire any real authority comes from that party's Immigration and Citizenship Critic Don Davies and Foreign Affairs Critic Hélène Laverdière's joint statement on the government's defunding of Palestine House.

An alleged welcoming centre for Palestinian immigrants to Canada, Palestine House has been linked to Immigration fraud and sponsorship of anti-Semitic rallies in Canada and works against the Canadian government's foreign policy goals.

Immigration Don Davies in particular should serve as a warning of how far the state of Canadian politics could have descended. The dearth of NDP abilities has given a senior role to someone who criticized laws meant to deter the illegal exploitation people wishing to come to Canada through human smuggling to Canada by comparing that with the Underground Railroad that helped escaped slaves seek refuge here.

Human smuggling entails criminals bringing in illegal aliens to work as slaves in Canada or as illegal economic immigrants, a subtle distinction evidently lost on Don Davies. Davies is the same person who showed his wisdom and capability as a player in the world of international diplomacy by calling for Canada to bar entry to the former Vice President of our closest ally and trading partner.

Davies seems happy to stand up for Palestine House, stupidly claiming, "“Given the high quality and success of its programming, it’s clear the Minister cancelled this funding for political reasons, all of which have turned out to be spurious." The political reasons of which Davies wrote would include support for terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as a litany of other disgusting acts from an organization that made a mockery of government funding programs.

Davis has shown his complete gutlessness in the face of coercion from anti-Israel groups before. While attending an anti-Israel rally in Vancouver in 2009, he stood at a podium and denounced Israel, but at a meagre attempt at balance, he made a simple, obvious statement that, "Palestinians must also stop violence against Israel."

He was immediately shouted at by the bloodthirsty fanatic that comprise the anti-Israel groups embraced by his NDP colleague and namesake Libby Davies, and rather than stand his ground, like Bob Rae has in similar situations,  Davies slunk from the podium like a confused, impotent, beaten dog. He later oozed his way back to try to re-ingratiate himself to the cretinous assembly by proclaiming, "My friends, do not take anything I've said to justify Israeli actions that we've seen."

If Rae's Ontario NDP were The Clampetts, at least they were well intentioned if not able. The federal NDP would be better described as The Wormtongues, cowardly, repulsive, self-interested politicans who Canada would do well to keep as far from the halls of power as possible.

h/t Sassy Wire

Ooohh... that sneaky Bob Rae just won't come out and say what he wants to do!

Of course he's going to run for party leader if he gets the chance! Come on Bob, just admit it! Just once!

A fun CPAC interview:



h/t Stephen Taylor

Good ol' fashioned Jew-hate from the Presbyterian Church of Canada

The Canadian Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center reported today about a one-sided, anti-Israel presentation by representatives of the Presbyterian Church of Canada that occurred at St. Andrews Church in Toronto on Thursday December 15, 2011. It was the account of a few Presbyterian representatives who responded to the anti-Semitic KAIROS Palestine document  that dismisses violence against Israel and includes terminology such as “The West sought to make amends for what Jews had endured in the countries of Europe, but it made amends on our account and in our land. They tried to correct an injustice and the result was a new injustice.”

The KAIROS Palestine document seeks to delegitimize any biblical attachment between Jews and the land of Israel and explicitly calls for “resistance” against Israel while ignoring the causes of the middle east conflict, Israel’s need for security due to the many and ongoing acts of terror by Palestinians and Arabs against Israelis.  

The document is a disgrace, which wrong-headedly attempts to lend the ideology of Christianity to support Palestinian renunciation of the peace process.  

Rick Horst, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, reported on his impressions of the Israel Palestine conflict after a trip there and seems to have taken the idiot's guided tour, which features complaints about Israeli "injustice" but neglects to mention the suicide bombings, the Palestinian state TV shows that call for the murder of Jews, and the Palestinians' government-sponsored incitement to violence in their schools and mosques .

Horst, who is also Minster of the Barrie, Ontario`s St. Andrews`s Church, decided to  utilize a common  anti-Semitic canard in his report and said (see from 8:16 in linked video), "Palestinians are daily harassed and abused and treated with indignities that are simply not allowable under international law,  yet it continues to persist  because of frankly the power of the Jewish and Zionist lobbies both in America and frankly all around the world including Canada`.  

You get that? According to the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, the plight of the Palestinians isn't due to their ongoing attempts at terror, or their failure to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. The fact that Palestinians impose the death penalty on anyone who sells land to a Jew doesn't make them an Apartheid state. It's because of an evil Jewish plot. And our politicians' support for Israel, like that of the Prime Minister of Canada, or federal Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney, or Liberal Party leader Bob Rae isn't because they have sided with a free, liberal democracy that provides equal voting rights to all its citizens over an undemocratic entity devoted to terrorism. Horst's implication is that it's because Canada's political leaders are under the influence of the Jews and Zionists.

What Horst is reporting is not a very accurate reflection of the situation in Israel and Palestine. But it is a sad reflection of the deplorable infusion of classic anti-Semitism at the highest reaches of Canada's Presbyterian Church.

UPDATE: Some interesting background on Rev. Horst. It seems the fellow ran for a federal Liberal nomination a few years back while still a member of the NDP. After that was exposed, he was defeated for the nomination in a special re-vote.

UPDATE 2: Here is the document produced by the "Bethlehem Call" to which Rev. Horst responded so enthusiastically.

It produced idiotic, morally reprehensible statements such as:

"Today, the illegal regime and illegal forms of the Israeli occupation of Palestine assumes

dimensions of systemic injustice whereby the unthinkable and unimaginable becomes globally accepted, supported and normalized. This is an example of Empire (global domination) at work."

"The brutality in the “violence of silence” internationally provides an almost impenetrable shield for the Israeli government to implement its evil designs in blatant disregard for human rights and international law. Silence is an opinion. Inaction is an action. We witness decidedly spineless cowardice in failure to resist the Israeli government by the majority of governments, political parties, media outlets, businesses, most of organized religion including Christianity and the silence of  prophets worldwide."

"The deligitimization and criminalization of the Israeli government and its local and international support base is gaining unstoppable momentum."

There's plenty more, all equally stupid.

Why centrist Liberals should strategically vote Conservative this election

As much as the other parties have been trying to paint Stephen Harper as a "right-winger" and the epitet "neo-con" is usually attached to him by NDP operatives, by comparative global standards, Canada's Conservative government is a centrist one.

Canada's socialized health care, lack of governmental desire to institute any laws restricting abortion access, its open immigration policies including a federal immigration minister who recently advocated to make it easier for Gay refugees to enter this country, all belie the notion of radical rightist ideology.

The danger of the current trend suggesting that the socialist NDP may actually be able to form the lead of a coalition party could ironically lead to Canada having a government further to the right of anything it has seen in years.

The lesson of Bob Rae's NDP government in Ontario shows how this could happen.

Rae was and is an able leader and politician. He was a three-term federal NDP MP and his party's Finance Critic before becoming leader of the Ontario NDP. He was far more capable, when he became Ontario's premier in 1990, than Jack Layton is today. Layton's only pre-commons political experience was as a long-serving, mediocre Toronto City Councillor and his leadership of the NDP has been distinguished by no tanglible result other than a recent polling popularity.

While Rae was more competent than Layton, he shared the same problem as the current federal NDP leader in that he was saddled with a caucus of inept ideologues who were incapable of effective governing. The result was so bad that the political pendulum swung drastically to the right and allowed the election of Mike Harris.

Harris was a conservative and a terrible leader for Ontario. His "Common Sense Revolution" was a sham. His promises to lower provincial taxes were only kept by offloading services to the municipalities, necessitating tax increases at that level. Harris' contempt of democracy was such that he forced amalgamation on municipalities that overwhelmingly rejected it in referendums.

Harris was a cynical, smart politician who knew he could keep a majority by exploiting and neglecting urban constituencies in order to keep rural ones happy. He was a poor leader for Ontario. But his poor leadership would never have come to pass had it not been for the protest vote gone wild that allowed Rae's NDP to create conditions allowing for Harris to succeed him.

Centrist Liberal voters should keep this analogy well in mind on May 2 when they go to the polls.

Layton's NDP includes incompetents and buffoons at the top of the party, including Deputy Leader Libby Davies, who is a 9-11 conspiracy theorist, as well as Joe Comartin, who is a George Galloway acolyte and associates with radical Imam Zafar Bangash,  an admirer of the totalitarian Ayatollah Khomeini.

An NDP government would create economic disaster for Canada that would eventually and inevitably swing the national pendulum so far to the right that it will make Stephen Harper look like Stephane Dion.

Michael Ignatieff may be a bright academic, but as a politician he is hopeless. If centrists want to prevent a real right-wing government from coming to power in Canada, their only choice is to vote for the the centrist Conservatives that are in place now.

Why the Liberals are really pushing for a Spring election

The Canadian Liberal party's polling numbers have plummeted like prices for Christmas tree decorations on Boxing Day. If the recent polls are correct, then the Liberals and New Democratic Party will both lose seats were an election to be held soon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives may even get its elusive majority government.

The Liberal party's swing to the left may have acquired them some votes from voters inclined to the NDP and Green parties, but that same move has driven even more centrist Liberal voters into the arms of the Tories.

Despite their best efforts to hammer the Conservatives with scandals like that of Bev Oda's mysterious signature on the CIDA document denying funding to the anti-Israel group, KAIROS  and the 5-year old "In and Out" election financing scandal, neither has had any resonance with the public. In fact, Harper's numbers have ascended in the midst of the campaigns to discredit his party.

This phenomenon can be explained by the one Conservative asset that the opposition parties cannot surmount;  incompetent, uninspiring leadership from the Liberals, Greens and NDP.

Liberal Foreign Affairs critic and Michael Ignatieff's former (and present?) main rival for party leadership, Bob Rae, seems to be pushing full on for a spring election.

In what sounds like an election push, Rae recently wrote on facebook, "The issue is not Kenney or Oda or Ouimet or Elections Canada - it is now democracy itself, and the simple idea that the rule of law means limits and respect that apply to everyone, even the Harperites. This is the issue of our day and our time - nothing more, nothing less."

Do the Liberals seriously think that if they shout that loudly enough, they can overcome the lack of confidence Canadians have shown in Liberal leadership as exhibited by Ignatieff for the last 3 years and Stephane Dion in the 2 years prior to that?

The answer is, "probably not."

What seems likely at this point is that senior Liberals like Rae realize that as long as Ignatieff helms the party, they're going to be shut out of power. So the sooner they replace him, the sooner they have a shot at winning. For a party like the Liberals, for whom power is frequently the overriding principle, nothing spurs a leadership change faster than an election loss.

Senior Liberals wanting to rebuild the brand have figured out that the fastest way to accomplish that is getting the inevitable Ignatieff loss out of the way quickly, so they can pursue their own ambitions now rather than later.

Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic Bob Rae condemns jihadis

But only the ones who aren't really jihadis in the Prime Minister's office.

Yet he remains strangely silent about the real Canadian jihadis who want to launch The Sea Hitler.

With Mr. Rae's expressed desire to repatriate Omar Khadr to Canada, maybe he was using "jihadis" as a compliment.

Bob Rae on Canada's continuing role in Afghanistan

Eye on a Crazy Planet is a non-partisan Canadian blog insofar as it takes positions on issues rather than political parties. (OK, I don't consider the NDP or Greens to be real political parties).

Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic Bob Rae reminds us that the Liberals understand the need for the defense of liberal democracy.

"The terrorists do not have a timetable. The terrorists do not have resolutions that say this is what has to happen and this is the day we have to do this and we have to do that.

The terrorists have a different objective, and we need to understand that as a House. Canadians have to come to terms with the need for this continuing engagement; they have to come to terms with the need for us to stay involved and stay engaged, not at the expense of our own people, not at the expense of our democratic traditions and not at the expense of how we do business as a country, but as partners."

Read more at The National Post

Marc Garneau: The Future of the Canadian Liberal Party?

Marc Garneau and his team do not want this story published.

I know that because his media representative explicitly told me so.

Eye on a Crazy Planet recently ran a poll asking readers who they would like to see as the leader of the Canadian Liberal Party. The poll was unscientific and the response was much lower than the previous poll asking about whether the US should bomb Iran (a resounding 'yes' from a big majority of you on that one).

This poll very intentionally listed only 3 candidates by name. That was because there is a dearth of potential leaders who excite the public among the group who have vied for the top position in the Liberal party since Stephane Dion's unsuccessful term which began in 2006.

Two in the poll were the ones most frequently associated with the current Liberal leadership, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, and a third, Quebce MP for the riding of Westmount--Ville-Marie, Quebec, Marc Garneau.

While none polled well, Garneau polled better than either Ignatieff and Rae. And looking to the future, the Liberals need to consider looking past the leadership of Michael Ignatieff.

Ignatieff is an intelligent, honest leader with sound policies. He is also uncharismatic and has failed to excite the Canadian electorate.

Bob Rae is a nice guy. He's a smart guy.His policies are thoughtful and reasonable. Enough time has transpired since his unsuccessful term as Premier of Ontario that a lot of that baggage has been shed, along with his old NDP membership card. But in my assessment, his time to lead the Liberal Party of Canada has passed. That time should have been in 2006 when the Liberals made the incomprehensible choice of Dion. The reactions to Rae nation-wide suggest that he could not win a national election.

So who does the Liberal Party have? None of the leadership contenders from '06 show any real promise. The two strongest of that crop, among those not already mentioned, would be Gerrard Kennedy and Ken Dryden. Kennedy's policy positions have always made him a much better fit for the NDP than the Liberals, but his ambition took him to the party where he felt he could achieve more power. He would be a disastrous Prime Minister.

Ken Dryden's personality as a politician is a lot like that of...well.. a goalie.He is exceptionally bright, but as a speaker is dull and uninspiring. As in his previous life, he's great at preventing the other side from scoring goals against him. But winning a game requires more than just not losing. It requires someone who can score and Ken has never been that guy.

There are some who have mentioned Justin Trudeau. Trudeau the younger has none of his father's adroit political skills. He's basically a name and a good haircut.

Marc Garneau, the Liberals' Critic for Industry, Science and Technology, is someone who may represent the best hope the Liberals have for regaining the national leadership in the foreseeable future.

He has the obvious necessary criteria of intellect, speaking ability and thoughtful policy positions.

But he has a lot more. All the successful Liberal Prime Ministers since Confederation, with the sole exception of William Lyon Mackenzie King, were Quebecois, like Garneau. For the Liberals to be able to get an effective majority, they need to be able to win over a large part of the Quebec electorate and Garneau, who is the chair of the Quebec Liberal Caucus, can do that.

But he also has to be able to win over much of the rest of Canada and as Canada's first astronaut, Garneau is and was a national hero before his entry into politics. He is a popular figure across the country who already has had two schools in Ontario named after him. The Liberals under Garneau would be able to win seats in every province, and could easily take their traditional majorities in both Quebec and Ontario. Something that no Liberal has done since prior to the 1993 election.

It should be clear that Garneau's staff has emphatically denied that they have ambitions or are thinking this way right now. They say they are solely focussed on being part of Michael Ignatieff's team and that they fully support his vision and the way he has put together a team of great parliamentarians who will be able to go out and win the next election.

They also say the think Mr. Ignatieff is doing a "great" job as Liberal Party Leader.

Okay. But for the sake of argument, let's assume the polls are right and the rest of Canada doesn't agree with that assessment of Mr. Ignatieff.

If that's the case, then while Marc Garneau may not be thinking of positioning himself for the Liberal leadership, he should be.