Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff did the right thing and resigned. Unfortunately, politics and the leader of the Opposition did not make a good fit. Ignatieff never seemed comfortable in a politician's skin. He looked as though he would have preferred to be lecturing at Harvard rather than flipping campaign flapjacks in Moose Jaw.

The Liberal leader had to leave because when you drag your party into the worst performance in its history as well as lose your seat that's what you are obliged to do. The most amazing thing about Ignatieff's result was that it was even worse than his predecessor's. And Stéphane Dion was an astonishingly inept political leader. But then politics is often unfair -just ask Lawrence Cannon today.

Ignatieff's departure will allow Liberals to move forward quickly on their massive job of reform and renewal. Few parties need it more. The Grits had become arrogant in their role as "the natural ruling party." The sponsorship scandal showed an astonishing level of entitlement that voters have not forgotten -particularly in Quebec. And while other parties would shudder at battling the way the Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin forces did, the Liberals continued the internal fight, to their detriment at the polls. The Grits were so confident of victory they thought they could war among themselves and still win.

Ignatieff 's leaving allows Liberals to renew the process of bringing in new blood and new ideas, while at the same time returning the party to its centrist position in the political spectrum. Liberalism, Canadian-style, probably doesn't need to be redefined, but it certainly needs a return to good ethics and hard work. Some pundits are predicting the demise of the Liberal party but, no doubt, given its long history and close association with what matters to Canadians, there is plenty of room for it on the political landscape.

Being fiscally prudent, supporting business and yet having a social conscience is unlikely to go out of style. That's the traditional ground of the Liberals, the party of John Manley and Paul Martin.

There is a place for the Liberal party, if it is able to reform itself. But it must lose its tired old baggage and regain its moral centre. In the post-Ignatieff era, if it can do that, it will regain its currency among Canadians and at the ballot box.