WhatFinger


Michael Ignatieff, True Patriot Love

Ruby and the Slumdogs



The Big Dog of the Liberal party Michael Ignatieff, so visible in recent weeks, has fallen under the radar. He’s been as rarely seen as a Canada goose during a Manitoba January. I throw in these Canadianisms because Michael is educating himself on how best to impersonate a Canadian. They feed him my commentaries and while I am not a Harvard professor, I try to be instructive.

Support Canada Free Press


The Big Dog has been barking up a rhetorical story in the past few weeks, promoting his book called, “True Patriot Love,” (a real Canadian gave him that title) and he’s also been busy in recent weeks contesting an uncontested coronation of himself. Remember it was a contest and he only got 97 percent of the vote. While he has made himself exceptionally visible to virtually every media player in this country, except for me - and I wear his scorn as a badge of honour - this week Michael Ignatieff is nowhere to be seen or heard from. It's not because there are many signs that the worst of the economic firestorm is behind us and he doesn't want to rehash his boilerplate speech about how the Prime Minister is burning down the economy and Canadians are desperate to have the Liberal fire department come to the rescue. Michael Ignatieff isn't invisible because of that. He is making himself scarce because he doesn't want to answer questions about a Liberal that he was very visibly slumming with last week. For the very few of you who were paying attention to the Liberal Convention in Vancouver, you couldn't help but notice that Michael was sharing a lot of camera time with the exceptionally telegenic, Ruby Dhalla. The Member of Parliament for Brampton, which some think of as the capital of Ontario's East Indian community. What does that have to do with anything? Because Ruby until recently saw herself as the Queen of that Community and more importantly, many who fund the Liberal Party and supported Michael Ignatieff's efforts to become the King or the Big Dog, as I prefer to see him, also saw her in that light and some probably still do. Some want to be believe that whatever the Toronto Star has been saying about Ruby's possible abuse of the law, of her nannies who were brought to Canada from Asia under interesting circumstances and underpaid and overworked and bullied and threatened and abused, well some of her fervent supporters will say this is media trash. But Michael Ignatieff is walking around egg shells and wants to be seen as little as possible, and heard as little as possible.   After all, Michael Ignatieff cannot clear his throat without mentioning the phrase: human rights. And he will be the first to tell you that he has always worked very diligently for human rights, and it is true that his younger brother has. Just as Michael Ignatieff will tell you how close he was to his mother, especially in her final years when she was fighting and losing to Alzheimer's. He even wrote a book about it and it's true that his brother was close to his mom and the story that was written in first person was actually not about Michael's relationship with his mother. That's a fiction and thankfully for Michael, the book was labeled as such, because the real beautiful relationship that did exist between mother and son was between Michael's mother and Michael's brother. And so by now you know that when a man indulges in a great deal of pretense, he has to be very careful about getting too close to someone who has been caught being pretentious. As the critic for Multiculturalism, Ruby Dhalla has passionately toed the Liberal line, claiming that the Liberals care more than the Conservatives about immigrants, about women, about the rights of women, about the rights of working women and about the poor. And of course, this may be true about some Liberals versus some Conservatives. But is it true about Ruby? Is it possible that there ain’t much Mother Theresa in the Real Ruby, and that the Real Ruby is a lot closer to Marie Antoinette? Is it possible that Ruby is involved in a situation where she took the slumdogs and instead of treating them respectfully, she treated them shabbily? And, if she did behave like the Slumlord the media stories portray her to be, she becomes all of a sudden someone Michael Ignatieff will have a hard time slumming with. Even though Michael Ignatieff is in his bunker, he gets the papers and here are just a few of the lines he read this morning about the allegations in what I call the Ruby and the Slumdogs story. From today's Globe and Mail: The MP for Brampton-Springdale is glamorous, energetic and career-oriented. She's also viewed by fellow caucus members as a “high maintenance” self-promoter, unwilling to do parliamentary drudgery, and demanding with her staff. “I don't get the sense that too many people are feeling all that sorry for her,” one MP said. Two women have alleged that Ms. Dhalla and her family had hired them under the federal Live-in Caregiver program for foreign workers to care for the MP's mother. They say they were paid $250 a week for 16-hour days of household chores – from shining shoes to shovelling snow – and cleaning the family's chiropractic clinics. One, Magdalene Gordo, 31, compared the job with slavery; the other, Richelyn Tongson, 37, said Ms. Dhalla withheld her passport for weeks. In the Ontario Legislature, Labour Minister Peter Fonseca faced accusations that he protected a fellow Liberal when he took no action after he first learned about the allegations from the employees themselves, in a town hall meeting two weeks ago hosted by Education Minister Kathleen Wynne. “Will you penalize Ruby Dhalla? Will you put Ruby Dhalla in jail?” New Democrat MPP Cheri DiNovo asked in the legislature. “Ok, enough, enough…spare me more details,” Ignatieff must be saying to himself as he reads this. Only days earlier he was posing with her. And when he won that hotly contested leadership on Saturday, she was on stage with him, hoisting his hand in victory. And now, what may be the seamy side of Ruby Dhalla emerges. And she appears to be a capital C Liberal, but certainly not a person with a liberal heart, a liberal soul, a liberal attitude toward - and I'm going to borrow one of the left's favourite expressions - the most vulnerable. The Ruby and the Slum Dog story clashes with the idea that the Liberal Party is the only one in this country that will deal fairly with immigrants, with working women and with - will everyone now say it with me - THE MOST VULNERABLE. How politically vulnerable is Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party? My hunch is they are very vulnerable. After all, it appears that Ruby Dhalla may have not only offended a lot of Canadians, she may have violated several laws. There were some in the last forty-eight hours who said she could face up to two years in jail for the things she is accused of and I am going to repeat, accused of doing. These allegations have not been proved in a court of law. Problem for Ruby is that Michael Ignatieff, her leader, is treating her like she has already been convicted. His unwillingness to speak about her, speaks volumes of how he feels about her. Now I have said in the past, on this show and elsewhere, that Michael Ignatieff has never been unwilling to abandon friends, relatives, jobs, universities, marriages, and of course countries. The man is a serial dilettante. And it's true that he might have been better served on this file had he taken more seriously previous stories about her. In the winter of last year, Ruby took a trip to India and the headline in the Toronto Star read: Furor engulfs Brampton MP in child beating It’s from January 10, 2008, a year and a half ago, and Michael Ignatieff would have been wise to read this. A Brampton MP is caught up in an international furor after a young boy was beaten and arrested after he stole a purse from her aide. Ruby Dhalla, in India on a two-week trip, was at an event on Monday in a northern village when the purse was snatched. Half an hour later, a boy, Sachin, 11, and his little sister Bindia, 9, were caught with the help of members of the public and Indian police travelling with Dhalla, police said. The bag was returned, the two children were taken into custody and at least one was beaten. Images of the children were flashed across India and around the world. “I was not there to witness this and I can tell you seeing this picture I did express my shock and horror and disbelief,” Dhalla said in a phone interview with the Toronto Star from her New Delhi hotel room last night. “I don’t think any child should ever be treated in this manner by any individual and especially police, which are there to protect and ensure safety and security.” An online broadcast by Times Now television described Dhalla’s first response to the incident as “shockingly callous.” In an interview Dhalla was quoted as saying she “cannot control what the police do…and I hope that those young kids learn from this incident.” Dhalla said last night that at the time she made that statement, she was unaware the children had been taken into custody or had been mistreated. “I was hoping they would learn what they had done was wrong and that you can’t take something that was not yours,” she said. She said she condemns the way the children were treated and encouraged senior police officials to investigate. “Hopefully, they realize what they have done is wrong and I think in terms of the arrest there is a judiciary that is in place and the Punjab government did inform me that they have a process in how they deal with these types of cases.” Manish Tiwari, a special correspondent with the Hindustan Times, said in a phone interview there are photos of the boy being dragged and beaten in full public view while his sister — her small hands clasped together— begged for mercy. But once the images of the pair were made public by news outlets the Punjab State Human Rights Commission took notice, he said. The commission has requested a formal explanation from the region’s senior superintendent of police by Feb. 13, he said. Gurpreet Bhullar, senior police superintendent for the region, told the Star last night that, when the beating was brought to his attention, he immediately launched an investigation. He said he expected results in 48 hours. He said the children were charged with theft, examined by medical officers and handed over to a juvenile facility. “I told (the police to) look into the matter and give me the details so we can take action if something was done,” he said by telephone. Dhalla said she is looking into whether she can get a chance to meet with the children to discuss the theft and how they were treated. We have no word on whether she ever did get to meet those children to discuss their lives. Perhaps some day she will allow me to interview her, and I will ask. My guess is she will allow me to interview her on the same day those slum dogs she abandoned that day become millionaires, like the kids in the movie. I really liked that movie. So did a lot of other people. Slumdog Millionaire - I recommend it. I don't know if anyone will ever make a movie called, Ruby and the Slumdogs. But if they do, I am sure Michael Ignatieff will not be giving it a very kind review. I'm Charles Adler and this is the Corus Radio Network.


View Comments

Charles Adler -- Bio and Archives

Join Charles Adler as he takes the issues important to you and presents them in a way that provokes thought and reaction.


Sponsored