Coming in 2009: Liberal Leadership Convention

Well here we are, in the midst of an election nobody wants. I've accurately called the last few elections but I cannot call this one. Just too many variables to sift through. My best guess would be another Harper minority. The Liberals have an uphill battle ahead of them, and they're their own worst enemy. That enemy comes in the form of Stephane Dion. When the Liberals selected Dion as their new leader in 2006, they probably could not have picked a worse candidate. Well, maybe they could have considering what makes up the bulk of that party but Dion is hardly leadership material. Back in an era before he played with his (golf) balls before the courts, Chretien had Dion as part of his cabinet. Dion was his environment minister, which would explain his distressing passion for the planet. He even named his dog Kyoto. The problem, Dion was never elected to parliament. For starters, after the Sponsorship debacle, you'd think the Liberals would want to get as far away as possible from the Chretien years. However, the party was still (and largely still is) split between Chretien and Martin supporters. The fact that he was part of the Chretien cabinet by virtue of patronage is only the first strike against the man. Dion has shown recently that he is simply not ready to lead the country. Polls asking "who would make the best PM regardless of party" have placed him in a distant third behind Harper and Layton. Dion's approval rating sits at 20%. The latest Angus Reed Poll (September 9th, 2008) is putting the Liberals not neck and neck with the Conservatives, but rather in NDP country, with only 24% popularity. This does not exactly bode will for the Liberals, who often see themselves as having divine right to rule Canada.

Much of this I would attribute to their leader's bumbling over the issues. First off, we have Dion's Green Shift. A plan that was proposed during an economic downturn which would see increased financial burden on Canadians. Yes, lets take a product that everybody needs, that's already doubled in price in the last three years, and tax it even more. The plan was supposedly a tax shift rather than a tax increase, as the Liberals described it. A tax shift supposedly means that tax increases in one area are offset by decreases in another. Of course, any Canadian with a brain between their ears knows that such a thing does not exist. The same plan was promised by Mulroney in response to the GST. No smart politician would ever run a campaign based on raising taxes. That's lunacy and political suicide. Now Dion is talking about increasing the excise tax on diesel fuels, which would increase shipping and transit costs even further. During an economic downturn, Canadians are more interested in keeping their jobs, not helping polar bears. Dion's campaign has become focused on a single, insignificant issue. Polls have shown that the environment ranks a distant third behind the economy and Afghanistan. Dion could be taking the time to rail Harper for job losses or Canadian deaths in Kandahar, but instead he is focusing on what is essentially a non-issue. Canadians are perfectly willing to help the environment, as long as it doesn't cost them any money or inconvenience them. Apparently the anthropogenic global warming fear mongering juggernaut isn't as powerful as originally thought. Dion is doing to the Federal Liberals what John Tory did to the Ontario PC. He's focused his campaign on something that's highly unpopular. Like Tory, Dion will lose the election based on that. Aside from that, most Canadians see Dion as simply too whiny and wimpy to lead the entire country. He does not have the charismatic image that Layton or Harper have tried to develop. Dion simply does not know how to play the political game.

I predict that after this election, the next big political news story will be the Liberals 2009 leadership convention. I'm going to make a bold statement and say that Dion will be forced out as party leader after this election, especially if the Liberals loose more seats, which is looking vary likely. He is a bad political strategist and a poor politician at best. If the Liberals want to regain their former glory, they're going to have to hope that Harper and Layton mess up big time, or they'll have to find a new leader.