The Real Coup.

There were 2 coup attempts in Canada last month, but only one of them succeeded.

We are all familiar with the failed attempt by the opposition parties at forming a coalition government in effect tossing out the current government and taking their place. We all know how that ended, but how many people are familiar with the details of other coup attempt that took place in Canadian politics last month, the successful one?


On December 10, 2008 Michael Ignatieff usurped the throne of the Liberal Party when the party brass, who were mostly supporters of Ignatieff, decided by themselves that the say of grassroots members of the party was not important and that they should be left out of the process of choosing the leader of their own party.

What started back in 2004 finally came into being by stifling the voices of the 68,000 card carrying party members in the name of a crisis that never really existed. There was a late attempt at democracy by then candidate Bob Rae to let the party members have their say but when that was shot down by party officials the coup was complete and Michael Ignatieff was named interim leader.

An interim leader without a challenger!

There is little point now going into the details of how this all was forced upon the party by Ignatieff supporters in the backrooms as the damage has been done, but some time has now passed since Ignatieff's leadership was forced upon the party and the reasons claimed for this undemocratic action are now gone.

It can be argued that once Stephane Dion was forced to resign in such an undignified way, if you want to believe that he wasn't forced to resign I have a bridge to sell you cheap, that a leader had to be chosen quickly if there was to be a quick election or if the GG decided to accept the notion of a coalition government. This I say is arguable because by the time Dion stepped down the GG had ALREADY decided to prorogue Parliament and there would be 50 full days before a budget was to be presented by the Harper Government. This of course makes the "crisis" that allowed the Ignatieff coup a fraud but now even more so as the Ignatieff lead Liberals have decided to support the budget killing the threat of a coalition and eliminating the threat of an election for some time to come.

But what now?


Ignatieff claimed that if he became the leader that he would "hope to immediately engage the grassroots."

Well Michael, the grass roots are indeed waiting. They are waiting for their chance to have their voices, which were removed from them by your team, returned. They are waiting for real democracy in the Liberal Party and they are waiting for a challenger to emerge to stand up and say to you that what you did was wrong and it was not the Liberal way.

The voice of the party is the members and not the backroom boys who imported you here to Canada after all of those years abroad to rule over us.