When Gerrard Kennedy crossed the floor to throw his support behind Stephane Dion, it had all the ear markings of the good olds days. Take 50 to 60 seats in Quebec, marry that to the 45 you get in Toronto along with a few more from the Golden Horseshoe and you have a nice slender majority which allows you to look after the people that you want, Quebec, Toronto and Golden horseshoe.
Will Stephane be a problem for Stephen Harper’s Tories?
Think about it.
Harper has already been courting Quebec trying to grab a few seats in that province. Who has the best chance of picking up votes in Quebec, Harper, or a francophone?
Kennedy is the darling of the City of Toronto, and there is money behind that crew.
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For those who can remember, things haven’t changed much in the last fifty years. Get a francophone from Quebec as Liberal Leader and get a lieutenant from Toronto and you have winner 10 out of 10 times.
Note that he is completely unfazed by the whole "despised in Quebec" line that has occasionally been floated against Dion. And I tend to agree with him in this. Link Byfield was on CBC this morning re. the Alberta Tory leadership race, claiming that Alberta would never vote Liberal Federally as long as one of their own (Harper) led the CPC. Criticize the mind-set behind this thinking all you want, but I suspect it applies to Quebec as much as it does anywhere else. So you can count on a good portion of La Belle Province rallying behind the hometown boy come election time.
Meisner also has interesting ideas concerning Harper's popularity out West:
The people of the west already are feeling uncomfortable with a leader they supported who has failed to return the favour and so Harper’s support is thin. The very same people who elected him are now casting an eye into the sky wondering where they can turn to next.
Hard for me to judge how widespread these sentiments are. But I would note a recent Decima Poll that had the Tories trailing everywhere in Canada outside of Alberta.
4 comments:
Mr Meisner conveniently leaves out the fact that Kennedy was born in Manitoba, attended the University of Alberta, worked for the Alberta government, directed the Edmonton food bank, is widely popular in Canada's lone red state, and garnered solid support throughout the country with the exception of Quebec.
There will be endless criticism from all angles and hissy fits from the old guard who didn't get their way. And it's understandable because they usually do get their way. I, for one, am grinning ear to ear at this exception.
This East/West, Quebec/Alberta crap is so draining....it seems motivated by the dumbest, angriest people who have the biggest mouths.
I'm going back to my old stand-by...I'm not apologising for living in a part of the country that encompasses 60% of the population and the country's GDP.
Ti-Guy,
As someone who grew up out West, I confess that I've never understood the whole Western alienation schtick.
Weirdest thing was when I went back out there in the late 1990s during a Federal election (1997?) and saw how heavily the Reform Party was playing the anti-Quebec card. There are maybe 15 French people on Vancouver Island. Most of the residents have only seen them on television. And yet you would have thought the French army was just offshore.
Mind you, I don't think Reform did too well out there...
You can shave a jackasses butt and run him as Federal Tory in Alberta and he will win
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