Michael Ignatieff

Michael Ignatieff, prominent Canadian author and academic, was first elected in 2006 as the Member of Parliament for Etobicoke Lakeshore. During the last session of Parliament, Mr. Ignatieff was Deputy Leader of the Liberal Opposition.

Son of a distinguished diplomat George Ignatieff, Mr. Ignatieff is the former director of the Carr Centre for Human Rights and Policy at Harvard University. He is one of the most influential voices in the global debate on human rights, as well as the distinguished author of an acclaimed biography of British academic Sir Isaiah Berlin and such award-winning works as The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror.

Mr. Ignatieff received a degree in history at the University of Toronto and a doctorate at Harvard University. He is a former Senior Research Fellow at King’s College, Cambridge, and has held teaching posts at Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, the University of California, the University of London and the London School of Economics.

Mr. Ignatieff has written extensively about the challenges Canada faces in the 21st century and the urgency of making Canada’s voice strong and credible on the international stage.

He is a recipient of the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction and the Heinemann Award, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread Novel Award. Mr. Ignatieff has also been a regular broadcaster and critic on television and radio.