Your First Stop for Liberal Party Convention Results Analysis

Official Results of the Liberal Party Convention here.

I was actually quite sick this weekend, and was essentially dead to the world all day. I woke up in a sweat at 5 P.M., afraid that I had missed all the ballots of the Liberal Convention. Thankfully, I hadn’t missed the fourth ballot. But imagine my surprise at the second and third ballots. I was certainly surprised at Rae being dropped in the third ballot. I ended up watching the results of the fourth ballots live on CTV.

I think very few people saw this coming. I certainly didn’t, to an extent. I had mentioned to a fellow Conservative over a couple beers last night that Dion shouldn’t be underestimated. He is from Quebec, and has cabinet experience. However, I regrettably never explicitly said that I expected Dion to win. Who would have known Rae would have been upstaged by Kennedy’s King-Making actions? Who would have known that Ignatieff would have had so little growth potential and so little momentum going into the second, third and fourth ballots?

What Do We Know About Dion?
Not only did most people not expect this to happen, I don’t think the Conservatives did either. Going into this weekend, I’m sure the Harper government had a plan for dealing with an election campaign run by Rae or Ignatieff, but I’m almost certain that they weren’t ready for Dion. Dion surprised everyone with his miraculous jump from fourth to first on the fourth ballot, where he garnered 54% of the votes.

Dion is someone who has deep roots inside the party, having represented the Quebec riding of Saint-Laurent-Cartierville since 1996. He was recruited by Chretien in 1996 to serve as Minister for Inter-governmental affairs, but was dropped from cabinet in 2003. He was re-appointed in Martin’s cabinet in 2004 as Minister of the Environment.

Steve vs. Steve
From a Conservative point of view, Dion’s victory is nearly the best scenario. Certainly, he wasn’t expected to win, which puts the Conservatives in an awkward position in which they will have to scramble to anticipate the new leader of the opposition’s moves. Either way, I’m not worried at all about Dion. Ignatieff might have been the CPC’s first choice, but that was because the race was largely seen as a race between Iggy and Rae.

Let’s be clear. Dion’s English is terrible, as we can see in the following CBC interview. This is going to cause him a lot of problems across English Canada, where he is already handicapped by his lack of prominence. Certainly, Dion’s English will win him no points in the West, where many people will be alienated by Dion’s lack of eloquence in English. Regardless of his oratorical ability in French, he will have a huge problem debating in English during a campaign. English Canada certainly won’t be giving him any points.

Dion may be from Quebec, but let’s not say that just because he’s from Quebec a liberal revival is on the way. Quite the opposite. Dion’s history of being a hard-line federalist will give Harper a chance to appeal to the softer federalists, and Dion certainly won’t be winning back many votes from the Bloc. Estranged federalists won’t be lining up to vote for Dion. If anything, the liberal revival isn’t looking exceptionally likely. Dion could soften his stance on Quebec, which would put him in a better position there, but for the time being, he’s not especially large threat to the Tories in Quebec.

Am I worried about the environment being an issue in the next election, given Dion’s tenure as Minister for Environment? Not at all. Dion's time as environmental minister including overseeing a 36% overage on greenhouse gas emissions, along with a reputed 6 to 8 Billion Dollars "lost and unaccounted for," in Dion's Kyoto program (according to Auditor General, Sheila Fraser). Dion didn’t take any significant steps to meet Kyoto targets – it was clear that there was never a plan to actually meet them. It was unrealistic then, and it’s unrealistic now. Regardless, that’s a debate for another day. Speaking of debates, I can’t wait for the smack in the face that Dion will get if he brings up the environment in a national debate.

Dion is no champion. His appeal across the country is extremely limited – even delegates, when polled by The Strategic Council, didn’t think he was the best to beat Harper (only 18% saw him as the best anti-Harper candidate). An Ipsos-Reid poll indicated that a Liberal government with Dion would be 8% points behind the Conservatives, with 27% of the popular vote. I agree with Daifallah when he said you could see the horror in the eyes of the people on the stage, with many thinking ‘What Have We Done’? What happened to Party Renewal and a new vision for the LPC? Instead, what has happened is that the Liberal have elected an old Chretienite with deep roots in the party and a legacy since ’96. Certainly not the renewal that has been suggested since the beginning of the campaigns. That being said, lets not underestimate Dion – we’ve already made that mistake once.