Article content continued

Mr. Ignatieff said he planned to return to teaching, and would entertain any offers for a return to the classroom.

He also spoke out against wide speculation among some Liberals, including Bob Rae, that the party should merge with the NDP to create a united left-of-centre party.

“We have different traditions and I think we have to respect that,” he said, adding that it is up to the remaining party members to chart a course for the future. “The surest guarantee of the survival of the Liberal Party will be four years of Conservative right-wing government and four years of NDP left-wing opposition. I think after that experience, Canadians will then discover why you have the Liberal Party in the centre.”



Mr. Ignatieff offered no suggestion on a future party successor, but said he hoped it would be a young woman.

The Liberals saw their worst election results in the party history, losing their hold on Atlantic Canada and Toronto and falling behind the New Democrats with just 34 seats, fewer than half of their previous historic loss in 2008.

Many of the party’s high-profile incumbents and former leadership hopefuls went down to defeat, including Ken Dryden and Gerard Kennedy in Toronto and Martha Hall Findlay in Willowdale.

Mr. Ignatieff himself was grappling with a loss in his Etobicoke-Lakeshore riding to Bernard Trottier, a manager at IBM and past-president of the local Conservative riding association.

It was a devastating fall from grace for the Harvard intellectual and respected journalist 10 days before his 64th birthday. Mr. Ignatieff returned to Canada in 2005 in hopes of rebuilding a party still plagued by the sponsorship scandal.

He finally secured the Liberal leadership in 2009 after falling to Stephane Dion three years earlier and his time at the helm of the party was meant as a sign of the party’s rebirth. Instead, it ended in crushing defeat that has left the Liberal brand in crisis.

“In the United States, where I work, liberals are in the wilderness,” Mr. Ignatieff told a party convention in 2005. “In Canada, liberals are in government. Down there, being a liberal is a burden. Up here, it is a badge of honour. No wonder I’m happy to be home.”

National Post

tmcmahon@nationalpost.com