Since everyone else is talking about this, I suppose I must as well.
1) Anyone one seriously considering replacing Dion at this point is nutz. Who has the stomach for another leadership race? And in any case that would mean the Liberals abandoning their role of Opposition for another 6 months/ year while they wash their dirty laundry yet again, and Harper and Co., I don't know, fumble us into another war or decide to drill for oil underneath the Parliament buildings. Being on the opposition benches, opposing the government agenda, is still a job, and I don't think the Liberal Party will do itself any good by taking more time off work to navel gaze.
Besides, Iggy can get five days of negative media coverage meditating on Canadian wildlife. He is still NOT THE MAN. So Dion is there for at least one general election, and people in the party who do not want to spend another five years or so in the political wilderness should make peace with that fact.
2) In a week or two a new federal poll will come out, and (I wager) the parties will be pretty much where they have been: Libs and Tories within the margin of error, with (maybe) the Tories down a few points. People will forget the by-elections (if anyone outside the political nerdigentsia was paying attention in the first place), and life will go on.
3) Now, that said, there are problems in Quebec that may be difficult to fix. As KC at Scott's place wrote,
I do NOT want to be part of a party that advocates decentralism and special status if thats what it will take to become a serious contender in Quebec.
I don't either, but I am not sure what else the Liberal Party has to offer that they will be willing to buy in La Belle Province.
Michael Ignatieff was in Outremont campaigning for the Liberal Party outside his home province.
ReplyDeleteWhere were you?
The puffin, btw, is a magnificent creature.
BCL - I thought you were smarter than this. Ignatieff had nothing to do with it. It's the old Iggy bashing coming back - the leadership race has been over for quite some time.
ReplyDeleteI didn't think you were so dumb that you believe all the garbage out there.
CTV's Robert Fife surprisingly said this morning that Ignatieff had nothing to do with it. It's the pathetic Quebec Liberals that blew it and looking for an excuse.
One thing about mistakes and hard lessons - you don't forget them. Dion will just have to pull up his socks and get tougher.
Mulcair is well known in Quebec and I noticed that he has more karisma, appeal and earnest that Jack Layton does - Mulcair is leadership material I think for the NDP and doesn't have the peacock air about him and if I were Layton I'd watch my back.
How about standing for something?
ReplyDeleteNo wage and price controls...get elected...wage and price controls.
We will cut the GST...get elected and keep the GST.
Engage us in a NATO led war...then say its Harper's war and call it wrong to be there.
Do nothing on GHG's and then claim its someone else's fault when we cant meet our obligations.
I'm not one of those mindless supporters of one political party. I believe that most Canadians would rather vote Liberal than Conservative, which makes all of this more fascinating. Your party is left of left, its been in power for so long its lost some of the best people to fatigue, you voted in a frail pale skinned spectaculed professer from Quebec whose English at best is hard to understand as your leader, your policy's are the ones that are opposite the Conservatives except 3 years ago they were your policy's...and very few of you want to admit the obvious. All you guys have to do is give Canadians a good leader, mediocre policy's and a "steer us in the middle" policy path and presto chango...a Liberal majority. Maybe you should start asking how you got so leaderless and ruderless.
I don't think Iggy DID anything. I think some of his supporters are still looking to replay the leadership convention.
ReplyDeletePlease pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
ReplyDeleteKEEP DION!
Gee, the so-called Liberal bias in the MSM wouldn't have anything to do with it would they?
ReplyDeleteThink about it - a so-called reputable journalist in the Chronicle writes about this garbage - are they desperate?
Why aren't they asking and writing about the important stuff - like what's Harper's view on Canada's role if say the US decided to bomb Iran, or, Harper's model of Belgium and federalism is collapsing - something truly important.
We need some REAL journalists in this country.
Talking about puffins - maybe Ignatieff was referring to burying excrement - CRAP (Conservative Reform-Alliance Party) - anyone think about that?
HA HA HA! BWHAHAHAHAHHAHA! HEEHEE HEE HEE! YA HA HA HA HA!
ReplyDeleteLOOOOOOOOOOOSERS!
LEWWWWWWWWZER! LEWZERLEWZERLEWZER!
Thus ends the vote in Quebec. Beautiful! Good job Steffi, I smell a majority this fall.
Here are the numbers for Martin Cauchon in Outremont under Jean Chretien:
ReplyDelete1993: 46.8%
1997: 50.2%
2000: 47.7%
Enter Paul Martin and Mr. Lapierre.
2004: 40.9%
2006: 35.1%
It's not shocking that with the NDP getting a hugely popular and legitimately "star" candidate the slide in Outrement that began SEVEN YEARS AGO has continued. That's not Dion's fault.
(H/T to the Macleans Live Blogging of the By Elections).
The real story here isn't that the Liberals lost 6 points in Outrement. It's that the Bloc lost 18 points ACROSS THE BOARD, and lost votes to the right in some ridings, and to the left in others. The Bloc is falling apart, which would be a huge story if we weren't all staring at Stephane Dion's navel.
Iggy could end the uprising started by his supporters if he really wants to.
ReplyDeleteThe fact remains that even though Dion has failed to be an impressive leader, he is still a better choice than Ignatieff and Rae. The leadership vote was clear.
good point about the progressive slide, lord kitchener. Also, Mulcair was a Lib MPP - environment. Voters not straying too far from comfort on that one.
ReplyDeleteVoting certainly looked regional on this one - pretty common with by-elections - and Lebel was alsomayor of Roberval, and a pretty popular mayor.
Libs need to re-examine their packaging for sure, but I don't think this is a huge reflection on the national front.
I can't see them not keeping Dion. Timing, for one thing, and he could be good, if the Libs work as a tight unit. They seemed to be doing that for awhile, after the initial post-leadership fragmentation, but they have been too quiet lately.
The Bloc is falling apart, which would be a huge story if we weren't all staring at Stephane Dion's navel.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct, LKO. The sliding of the Bloc into irrelevance, while not there yet, is good news to all who believe in Canada, whether we're Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Green, or other.
I am now convinced that Dion has to leave. Read what he told the G&M today, blaming the loss of Outremont on Harper's Afghanistan policy. According to Dion it was Afghanistan, not the NDP's star candidate, not the Liberal candidate, not the Liberal Party and, obviously, not the Liberal leader, that caused the NDP to take Outremont. This is the guy who is going to lead us into the next election?
ReplyDeleteThis is the guy who is going to lead us into the next election?
ReplyDeleteYes. If you don't like that, vote for another party.
Lord...a couple of by-elections and they're fainting and swooning and getting the vapours and filling up their incontinence pants.
"Harper and Co., I don't know, fumble us into another war or decide to drill for oil underneath the Parliament buildings"
ReplyDeleteSo it was HARPER who was in power when we went into Af'stan as part of the UN-mandated mission? That's some magic revisionist pen you've got there.
What would be wrong with drilling for oil under Parliament? Aside from the fact that it's SHIELD and there's no possibility of oil being there, I'm sure that's what Harper wants to do.
That's some magic revisionist pen you've got there.
ReplyDeleteI think BCL was referring to Harpy's blue balls resulting from Canada not participating in the gang-rape of Iraq.
Harper wanted to go third, and that was taken away from him.
CBC just talked about your blog on News World.
ReplyDeleteJoanne, anyone, what did they say? I was out and missed it totally.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on everything. I assume everyone in the "Iggy" camp knows that the only way he'll get another crack at the leadership is if Dion looses the next election. If they are pulling any shenanigans to make that happen then I fail to see how that can be seen as anything less than treasonous - to the Liberal party and the country for condemning us to another term (perhaps a majority gov't...shutter) of Harper and his war machine.
ReplyDeleteBigCityLib - They just referenced it on Politics with Don Newman (that's where I saw your site). You can watch real video of the broadcast by going to CBC.ca/politics.
ReplyDeleteHey cool BCL, I just watched you on "Politics." Thought I'd missed it (someone told me earlier in the afternoon), but they showed it at 4:30 for some reason. Anyway, pretty neat, huh? Don Newman liked your spelling of the word "nutz". "I guess that's the way they do things on the blogs," he said. Or something to that effect.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they highlighted the first part of your post.
ReplyDeleteRed Tory's blog was also shown. They like Omar's comment too.
I did not vote for Dion in the leadership race. He was a terrible pick. Furthermore, if he resigned Ignatieff could take the party leadership, he is deputy leader. We don't need another leadership race.
ReplyDeleteI dont think Dion has the charisma to be the PM. Hes weak, he looks disorganized when hes speaking. He has every since I noticed him speaking.
Please for the good of the party, resign Dion.
"UNFICYP (the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus) was established in March 1964. It was the eighth UN peacekeeping operation to be founded, and is currently the fourth-oldest UN peacekeeping operation in the world."
ReplyDeleteSo Cypress is the 4th oldest peace keeping mission, having been going on for 43 years. Canadians were on the Golan heights for 32 years. All of this 'peacekeeping' stuff accounts for 5% of our military activity - the rest of the time we are pointing rifles and shooting. So you knobs are completely LYING when you say Canada has become 'militarized' under Harper - it's just bullshit. Liberals tried their best to gut the military to the point of no return, but even then the army was still an army, not a bunch of nannies.
Is it peacekeeping when you're there for 30, 40 years? Will we be 'peacekeeping' in Af'stan for 30 years, or will we be gone in 10? Makes it seem like going in and fighting to win is the best way to bring troops home.
Vive le Quebec Libre!
ReplyDelete