In a statement today, the Conservative war room gave a reference to back up a line the party has used in ads that say Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff calls himself “a tax-and-spend Liberal.”
It is a rather bizarre thing for Ignatieff to say. So did he?
The party refers to a 2004 piece in the Toronto Star by Lynda Hurst:
Not that he had a vote, but Ignatieff is still intensely rankled by the outcome of the U.S. election. As a “tax-and-spend, Pearsonian, Trudeau Liberal,” he is, by proxy, a Democrat, he says, and he believes John Kerry could have won, and would have, had he been a better candidate.
One must assume that the quote is accurate, although we don’t know what Ignatieff said proceeding it. And we also have to assume that, despite the awkward attribution in the sentence, that the words are Ignatieff’s. So, hard to wriggle out of, unless the Liberals can clarify or provide the full quote.
Though it may sound like torque, the line from the ad looks fair.