Bad for everybody else

The good news for Lib supporters: for one brief and shining moment, Michael Ignatieff actually took a principled stand based on common sense rather than parroting the spin of corporate interests...

Last weekend, on a tour of Vancouver Island, Ignatieff was asked about his position on asbestos, and he said he favoured banning exports.

"I'm probably walking right off the cliff into some unexpected public policy bog of which I'm unaware, but if asbestos is bad for Parliamentarians in the Parliament of Canada, it just has to be bad for everybody else," he said. "Our export of this dangerous product overseas has got to stop."

But needless to say, a complete reversal wasn't far behind:

But in a scrum with reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday, Ignatieff was asked about his statement and he didn't mention a ban.

"We have had 60 years of experience with this product. What I said in answer to a question is that we have an obligation to international agreements to the countries that we export to, to make them aware of the risks. That is all I said."

It's left as a challenge for any reader to figure out how one can square the statement that Canada "has got to stop" exporting a "dangerous product" with the recent position. But that figures to be no less an exercise in futility than any other effort to justify most of Ignatieff's actions since he took over the Libs.