Canada: Liberal Party Has a New Leader

[Frodo]

Canada’s Liberals Choose Dion as Their Leader

By REUTERS
Published: December 2, 2006
Filed at 6:14 p.m. ET

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Canada's official opposition Liberals on Saturday unexpectedly chose former Environment Minister Stephane Dion as their new leader despite political shortcomings that could hinder his chances in an election expected next year.

Dion, in fourth place after the first round of voting, beat former Harvard academic Michael Ignatieff on the fourth and final ballot at a Montreal leadership convention. Dion won by 2,521 votes to 2,084.

The Liberals have dominated Canadian politics for the past century but lost power to the Conservatives in a January election. The Conservatives have a minority government that looks set to fall in 2007, sparking a new election.

Dion won in part by stressing the need to do more for the environment, a topic of increasing importance to Canadians.

But he has two potential strikes against him. First, he speaks English with a heavy French accent, which could make it hard to win over voters in what is a predominantly Anglophone country.

Second, he is unpopular in his home province of Quebec, which accounts for a quarter of the seats in the federal Parliament.

French-speaking separatists strongly dislike him for his efforts to prevent them from holding a successful referendum on whether Quebec should break away from the rest of Canada.

An Ipsos-Reid opinion poll published on Friday said if Dion won the leadership, the Liberals would win 27 percent support if an election were held now, compared with 35 percent for the Conservatives.

[Gabu]

French-speaking separatists strongly dislike him for his efforts to prevent them from holding a successful referendum on whether Quebec should break away from the rest of Canada.

Actually, this is probably a good thing for the Liberals, really.  Now that Harper has decided to try and pull in separatists with dumb politicking, the Liberal Party would do well, in my opinion, to have someone as their leader who provides a stark contrast to what Harper is up to.  You can't get anywhere politically with an issue if your guy agrees with the other guy.

As for his heavy accent... uh, remember a guy back in the 1990's?  Chrétien?  The guy with the ridiculously bad English?  Yeah, that guy.  He sure didn't do well.

All in all, I'm happy enough with Dion.

[Jake]

Any reason this took ten months to be complete?

[Colin]

French-speaking separatists strongly dislike him for his efforts to prevent them from holding a successful referendum on whether Quebec should break away from the rest of Canada.

All in all, I'm happy enough with Dion.

As long as he doesn't start singing love songs and crappy music about children like another famous Dion.

[Gabu]

Any reason this took ten months to be complete?

The same reason it takes your presidential campaigns over a year to complete.

As long as he doesn't start singing love songs and crappy music about children like another famous Dion.

"NEAAAAAAR, FAAAAAAR, WHEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVER WE AAAAAAARE, I BELIEEEEEEVE THAT CANADA DOES GO OOOOOOOOOON"

[Verily]

French-speaking separatists strongly dislike him for his efforts to prevent them from holding a successful referendum on whether Quebec should break away from the rest of Canada.

Actually, this is probably a good thing for the Liberals, really.  Now that Harper has decided to try and pull in separatists with dumb politicking, the Liberal Party would do well, in my opinion, to have someone as their leader who provides a stark contrast to what Harper is up to.  You can't get anywhere politically with an issue if your guy agrees with the other guy.

As for his heavy accent... uh, remember a guy back in the 1990's?  Chrétien?  The guy with the ridiculously bad English?  Yeah, that guy.  He sure didn't do well.

All in all, I'm happy enough with Dion.

Chretien faced badly divided opposition, and in general the CA/Reform and PCs were none too friendly with each other. After all, exit polls in 2004 indicated that as many as half of former PC voters switched to the Liberals.

Dion will only further alienate the West while failing to make inroads in Quebec. He may have moderate success in Ontario, but that's not enough for the Liberals. (Not that conservatives and Conservatives should be cheering; Dion will help the NDP, Greens and Bloc, not them.)

[Gabu]

Chretien faced badly divided opposition, and in general the CA/Reform and PCs were none too friendly with each other. After all, exit polls in 2004 indicated that as many as half of former PC voters switched to the Liberals.

Sure, but his accent was never once an issue.  In fact, on one occasion they tried a last-ditch attempt to make it into an issue and it backfired hugely.

Dion will only further alienate the West while failing to make inroads in Quebec. He may have moderate success in Ontario, but that's not enough for the Liberals. (Not that conservatives and Conservatives should be cheering; Dion will help the NDP, Greens and Bloc, not them.)

We'll see.  Given that it's only a day after he became the leader of the Liberal Party, I think it's rather early to predict the next election purely due to who he is; it depends on what he does, too.  Politicians don't just sit there and have the people look at them and then make a decision.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

Politicians don't just sit there and have the people look at them and then make a decision.

Right.  Save that right for the Americans

[merseysider]

I know very little about Dion, but I can't imagine that someone who came fourth on the first ballot, and who won by being everyone's second or third choice, will make a very strong leader!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Dion is a decent person from what I've read, but he might have a hard time getting over the image of him being the compromise candidate.

Dion will only further alienate the West while failing to make inroads in Quebec. He may have moderate success in Ontario, but that's not enough for the Liberals. (Not that conservatives and Conservatives should be cheering; Dion will help the NDP, Greens and Bloc, not them.)

Too early to tell much, but I think Dion will help the Liberals, in the long term at least, in Quebec. Not everyone in Quebec is a seperatist and the Liberals need to either win back support there, or change direction as a party.
But the best outcome for the Dippers methinks.

[cp]

I know very little about Dion, but I can't imagine that someone who came fourth on the first ballot, and who won by being everyone's second or third choice, will make a very strong leader!

Yeah, he'll be just like that feable, uninfluential ponce that won on the fourth ballot the last time the Liberal Convention went that long. What was his name? Pierre Trudeau?

[Verily]

We'll see.  Given that it's only a day after he became the leader of the Liberal Party, I think it's rather early to predict the next election purely due to who he is; it depends on what he does, too.  Politicians don't just sit there and have the people look at them and then make a decision.

Right now, I think we can judge on what he has done. Unlike the other leadership contenders, Dion has been around in federal politics for a long time and has a rather mediocre, boring and (most importantly) uncompelling record. I can't see that changing with him becoming Leader of the Opposition.

[Gabu]

Stategic Counsel has come out with a new poll immediately following the Liberal leadership convention that has a bunch of interesting results in it:

20% of Canadians are more likely to vote Liberal due to the pick of Dion, while 26% are less likely.  Despite this, 55% think that he was a good choice, compared to only 19% who think he was a poor choice. (I'm not exactly sure how to explain this...)

Despite what appears to be a deficit for the Liberals, however, 37% of Canada would now vote Liberal compared to 31% of Canada that would vote Conservative.  The NDP are at 14%.  On October 15, these numbers were 32-32-17.

Most of this is due to a Liberal surge in Ontario, rising from 36% to 48% support; the Conservatives went down from 33% to 32% and the NDP went down from 19% to 15%.  A lot of this support for the Liberals appears to have been sucked off of the Green Party, as they went down from 11% to 5%.

The numbers are basically completely unchanged everywhere else.  The Liberals gained 1% in the west and the Conservatives gained 3%, both of which seem to have been sucked off of the NDP, but this is small enough to easily just be margin of error movement.  Quebec is as unchanged as you can get, with not a single number changing since October.

Another interesting (and mostly unrelated) result:

58% of Canadians would vote to keep the same sex marriage law, compared to only 36% who would not.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, the inevitable New Leader Bounce.

The Same Sex Marriage numbers are more interesting IMO.

[Speed of Sound]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

*Wakes up*  awww.....


Someday.......someday....... -_-

[Gabu]

Yeah, the inevitable New Leader Bounce.

You're better at this stuff than I am: can you offer an explanation for the combination of the numbers for more likely/less likely to vote Liberal being 20-26 with the numbers for good choice/poor choice being 55-19?

I've struggled to reconcile these two figures, but I can't do it.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Which 'faction' of the liberal party does Dion belong to?

[Gabu]

Which 'faction' of the liberal party does Dion belong to?

Well, he's a Francophone from Quebec who strongly opposes federalism, and was the author of the Clarity Act.  He was Minister of the Environment under Martin's minority government before the Conservatives won a minority in 2006.

If that answers your question.  I'm not sure if it does.

[Hatman 🍁]

Which 'faction' of the liberal party does Dion belong to?

Neither. The Martinites supported Ignatieff while the Chretienites supported Rae. Dion was the compromise candidate, and was helped out by the newer Liberals who didnt come from either of the factions.