Liberal celebrity faces tough Canada election race

TORONTO (Reuters) An unexpected turnaround in Canada's election race is making life tough for the Liberals, even for a celebrity candidate like author and human rights activist Michael Ignatieff.

Parachuted into a supposedly safe west Toronto seat, Ignatieff had been expected to romp to victory in possible preparation for a long-shot run at the party leadership if Prime Minister Paul Martin steps down.

But the reality has been harder, as the Conservative opposition raced ahead of the Liberals in opinion polls in the runup to the January 23 election.

Voters grumble at the fact that the well-known scholar and TV personality is not from the district, and at his support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which is deeply unpopular in Canada.

Ignatieff, who was the director of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, insists that his track record is firmly liberal.

"The slogans that characterize me as right wing just don't make any sense," Ignatieff, 58, said in an interview.

"I'm a strong liberal internationalist. That means when people are being chopped into small little pieces I want to stand up for them," he added, noting that his support for the Iraq war was based on Saddam Hussein's oppression of Kurds and Shiite Iraqis.

Ignatieff's main rival in the Etobicoke-Lakeshore district is Conservative John Capobianco who came second in the June 2004 election, 9,750 votes behind the winning Liberal candidate, Jean Augustine, who has stepped aside for Ignatieff.

The district, traditionally a Liberal stronghold, has a large immigrant community.

"Mr. Ignatieff has chosen Etobicoke-Lakeshore for the sole reason that he sees it as a convenient stepping stone to advancement with the Liberal Party," Capobianco wrote this week in the Conservative-friendly National Post newspaper.

"His undisguised leadership ambitions would be of no concern, except that it is our community he is stepping on. My neighbors deserve a full-time (member of Parliament) committed to advancing their interest, not his own."

The Toronto-born Ignatieff, who has lived outside Canada for 27 years, insists the focus on his residency is wrong, and he is eager to prove that his life experiences and ideas to revitalize the community will pay off in the long run.

"The other candidates keep saying, 'I'm a local boy'," said Ignatieff. "Being a local boy is just an address."