Polite. Respectful. Tough.
That’s the best way to describe the questions coming from young Canadians in Halifax today. But Michael Ignatieff wouldn’t want it any other way.
The Liberal Leader kicked off his eight-day campus tour with town halls at the Nova Scotia Community College (Waterfront Campus) and Dalhousie University. At each campus, Mr. Ignatieff led a conversation about Canada’s future, with students asking detailed – and sometimes pointed – questions about the environment, post-secondary education, the economy and other topics.
Here’s how the Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt described the hour-long conversation at NSCC:
The questions were remarkably good; this was an articulate and interested bunch of young people … They had questions about the economy, about new airport-security measures … And yes, they also wanted to know about Afghan detainees and whether they faced torture after being handed over by Canadian troops. Which means, we can assume, that they aren’t the kind of people that the Prime Minister was referring to, in his CBC interview last week, when he said Canadians don’t care about this issue.
Meanwhile, It was standing room only at Dalhousie University where Mr. Ignatieff opened a 90-minute conversation with some 600 students by framing the challenges they’d be inheriting in the coming years. You can watch his opening remarks below.
