The unity question

Michael Ignatieff talks about the coalition in Montreal.

"I’m in politics to unify people, not to divide them," Ignatieff said. "There was also a question concerning the legitimacy of the coalition that troubled me."

The power sharing deal between the Liberals and New Democrats, with support from the Bloc Quebecois, was not undemocratic, Ignatieff told the crowd of some 150 Montrealers gathered in a downtown theatre, but it would nonetheless have given Canadians the feeling that the parties had "in some sense or another stolen power."