Reality check: How much thought went into the Liberal’s “Thinkers Conference”?

Welcome to Montreal, where for the small price of $700, “ordinary” and “progressive” Canadians can have the rare privilege of pitching their best and brightest ideas directly to world renowned academic and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

Unlike the last “thinkers conference”—which spawned the Liberal Party’s infamous 1993 Red Book—there is already proof that Mr. Ignatieff is ready to not only borrow the best ideas as his own, but to actually put some of them into action.

Like, for example, the very notion of the conference itself, courtesy of the Institute for the Public Administration of Canada: “150!Canada is a new initiative from the Institute for the Public Administration of Canada to imagine, plan and celebrate Canada's sesquicentennial in 2017.” http://tinyurl.com/yafryxg

That the Ignatieff Liberals would need help thinking up their own “thinker’s conference” should surprise no one after this week’s embarrassingly botched motion on funding contraception and abortion services to women in the developing world.

Or that the last time Liberals gathered in such numbers to crown Mr. Ignatieff leader in Vancouver almost one year ago, the much heralded event ended with a whimper as Liberal MPs dismissed it the “Seinfeld Convention” because it “was about nothing” (Canadian Press, March 23, 2009).

No wonder Michael Ignatieff asked his MPs to stay away from Montreal. Or that failed former Liberal candidate for Hamilton Mountain Tyler Banham is calling this week’s meeting a “Liberal Non-Event Event”.