Latest Michael Ignatieff Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• We must not lose sight of the fundamental issue of policy which is that people who come to the country on visa status must never be abused.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Country, People, Policy

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• The Conservatives hold rural places because they keep bombarding rural Canada with, "Liberals are a bunch of urban, metropolitan snobs who don't care about you and want to leave you dead by the roadside." We've simply got to go out and say, "they're lying to you about us. We actually care about you more than the other guys, and we're not going to pander to your prejudices - we're going to give hope to your kids."

  Michael Ignatieff

  Lying, Kids, Giving

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• One of the biggest divides in Canada - I said it in 2006, and I said it right through my political career - is urban-rural. Lots of parts of this country feel entirely left behind. And they're mobilized by, you know, the gun control issue.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Country, Gun, Careers

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• Liberals don't want any part of Canada left behind. I used to give speeches on and on and on about the fact that we don't want to have a country where you think, "my kids have got to move to the city if they're going to have any kind of future." We've been saying that, and we've not got through.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Country, Moving, Kids

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• Inequality is not just an issue between individuals, between classes, between regions. It's between urban and rural.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Class, Issues, Urban

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• What really matters is getting new people in. The constitutional changes matter, but the thing that the party mustn't do is turn in on itself and think the thing we've got to do is fix our plumbing. The thing we've got to do is get new people in.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Party, Thinking, People

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• The party's got to see itself as being one public service organization in a very competitive field, all of whom are competing for the allegiance and commitment and brains of the next generation. They've got to be big enough to reach out to those groups and say "come on in."

  Michael Ignatieff

  Party, Commitment, Organization

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• The Liberal Party of Canada has no monopoly on public service, we have no monopoly on virtue, and we have no monopoly on wisdom.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Party, Canada, Virtue

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• There are all kinds of different forms of public service, but there's no form of public service that can make more difference for more people than partisan political activity.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Differences, People, Political

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• Public service does not necessarily mean service in the House of Commons, and public service is not synonymous with partisan political activity. It comes in a thousand colours, but the common denominator is: it's not about me - it's about we.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Mean, House, Political

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• There are a lot of young Canadians who want to be politically active at their college or their university who can't go to the party convention, who can't take part in politics, because they're holding down a job to pay their tuition. These are kids who want to do public service, who want to get involved politically, but their financial situation is precarious.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Jobs, Party, Kids

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• No kid graduating in a political science class in Canada should not understand what's happened to income inequality since the 1970s, period. And then, what do we do about it? It's the biggest problem out there, in all western liberal societies.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Kids, Class, Political

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• You're never really out of politics.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• I'm very struck by what you can do in a classroom. I've got 200 students. You don't do partisan politics in a classroom, that's not appropriate. But you want to give them a strong sense that these are the issues that matter.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Strong, Issues, Giving

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• We can't afford to waste people. We can't afford to have people think the game is over before it's begun. We've got to be saying to the Canadian people: you can't tax cut your way to a productive 21st-century economy. You can talk that talk, but it's not going to give you a productive 21st-century economy, because it will scythe apart the public goods that make prosperity possible. That's what we've got to say, and so we shall.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Cutting, Thinking, Games

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• The politics of personal destruction, the politics of division, the politics of fear, it's all there. It helps you to define the politics of moderation - the politics of democratic respect, the politics of hope - more clearly.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Division, Helping, Moderation

  Source: www.macleans.ca

• You can't get back to power by defining your project in negative terms. But it helps to have somebody in office who represents the opposite of what you believe.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Believe, Opposites, Office

  Source: www.macleans.ca