Maybe everyone gets a job after all?

It’s hard not to call this damage control in response to the furor over Ujjal and Irwin’s exclusion from the critic line-up last week. Still, rather than being a downer, I’ll just say its good that mistakes are being recognized and corrected. Well, most mistakes.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff announces new roles for caucus
Ujjal Dosanjh, Irwin Cotler and Ken Dryden named as Special Advisors

OTTAWA – Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff today unveiled new roles for members of the Liberal caucus and announced his nominees for House committee chair positions.

The Honourable Ujjal Dosanjh (Vancouver South), former premier of British Columbia, will assume the role of Chair of a new Intergovernmental Liaison Secretariat and will be consulting with provincial premiers and territorial leaders on the best way forward to secure stability and fairness in our federation.
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And it an article that’s totally unrelated to the above…Gary Mason made some good points in the Globe & Mail yesterday:

VANCOUVER -- There were likely few federal Liberals lamenting Michael Ignatieff's decision yesterday not to force an election over the budget. A national vote could well have been a disaster for the party, especially west of Ontario.

The West represents ground zero for the Liberals, both organizationally and in terms of the number of MPs they have in the region. The party has only seven of a possible 92 seats. This in the most prosperous and fastest-growing area in the country.

Five of those seven seats are in British Columbia, where the Liberals won half the number of seats they held when Paul Martin was at the helm. The Liberals made some real inroads in the province under Mr. Martin, but all that momentum has been lost.

Mr. Ignatieff has a massive job ahead of him if he is serious about rebuilding the Liberal brand in the West. The Liberals are a national party in name only now, and the Liberal Leader knows that. Remedying the problem will take ages. There are no quick fixes.
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