Economic Action: Immigrant Experience

Forebears Dept: The irony is that the Conservatives have indulged one of Mr. Ignatieff's passions; his ruminations on his forebears have so far filled two volumes, according to Globe And Mail. But by asking whether “ ‘the immigrant experience' of the Ignatieff family” is “anything like that of most immigrants to Canada,” the Tory talking points have a strangely 19th-century concept of the typical “immigrant experience.” Think of it as part of the federal economic action plan: The focus on Mr. Ignatieff's background could do much for those in the business of studying family trees. Other parties may have to hire staff genealogists. Politicians could no longer make their own myths, calling themselves, say, le petit gars de Shawinigan , without some opponent proving a descent from le Roi Soleil . The Conservatives justify their attack on his background by arguing the Liberals made it an issue. That's fair. The Opposition had posted a video in which Mr. Ignatieff paid tribute to his father, the Russian-born Canadian diplomat George Ignatieff, saying he “came off a boat without anything” and “lived that immigrant dream, up the ladder one rung at a time.” The Conservatives counter that the Ignatieffs were Russian aristocrats; in other words, not people who had to dig up turnips. As reported in the news.
@t globe and mail, canadian diplomat