Liberal leader Stephan Dion Steps down
- Thread starter Liberalman
- Start date
Trudeau was in control considering the party kept him in there, Global time when he was in power....were not the best......He was the most popular and well liked PM Canada had seen in a long time...
Today the Liberals are not at a position of experimentation. The reason Dion was chosen by the Liberals was because Jeff Kennedy moved out of the way and gave Dion his support which moved Dion from third place to number one choice to be the leader. That was experimentation which came back to hurt the Liberal Campaign...........
Soc, I wish you would stop smoking your weed. You are delusional as this post proves.
Trudeau was in control considering the party kept him in there, Global time when he was in power....were not the best......He was the most popular and well liked PM Canada had seen in a long time...
Today the Liberals are not at a position of experimentation. The reason Dion was chosen by the Liberals was because Gerard Kennedy moved out of the way and gave Dion his support which moved Dion from third place to number one choice to be the leader. That was experimentation which came back to hurt the Liberal Campaign...........
Hey Risus slow down 40% of the popular vote is not exactly a landslide either..................
You know Harper will get waked on the polls next time...............you know why? because Canadians are like a deer in the night, and the word deficit is like high beam lights................ So the Canadian voters when deficit is in the air they get jittery.....and we all know what that means, the 40% popularity Harper is at momentarily you may witness that 40% to shrink dramatically......in the next 1 1/2 year.....................
Once again you spout crap not fact. 'nuff said.Hey Risus slow down 40% of the popular vote is not exactly a landslide either..................
You know Harper will get waked on the polls next time...............you know why? because Canadians are like a deer in the night, and the word deficit is like high beam lights................ So the Canadian voters when deficit is in the air they get jittery.....and we all know what that means, the 40% popularity Harper is at momentarily you may witness that 40% to shrink dramatically......in the next 1 1/2 year.....................
"So the Canadian voters when deficit is in the air they get jittery.....and we all know what that means, the 40% popularity Harper is at momentarily you may witness that 40% to shrink dramatically......in the next 1 1/2 year..................... "Do the math and you will see that the answer is not crap.....................
No math required there, you need hip waders to get through the crap...
Get to a shrink and have your head examined!
If both of us are around in the next 1 1/2 year I will be there to remind you don't worry............"So the Canadian voters when deficit is in the air they get jittery.....and we all know what that means, the 40% popularity Harper is at momentarily you may witness that 40% to shrink dramatically......in the next 1 1/2 year..................... "
No math required there, you need hip waders to get through the crap...
Get to a shrink and have your head examined!
By the way my sister is a shrink, she tells me I am OK......
She was only feeling sorry for you....If both of us are around in the next 1 1/2 year I will be there to remind you don't worry............
By the way my sister is a shrink, she tells me I am OK......
Anyway the liberals won't be able to afford another election for 4 years, they can't handle their own finances, they would be a disaster with the country's.
Why do cons always need a little reminder of who fixed the country's financial mess?
It wasn't your precious Stevie , the Libs did it.....fact.
Your cons will take us back into deficit and have even indicated it, after the election of course.:roll:
Who's the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?
I think Risus, you have answered this question very loudly.:lol:
The Liberal Party needs more than a new leader
JEFFREY SIMPSON
From Monday's Globe and Mail
October 20, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT
Beaten, broke, divided and diminished. That's the Liberal Party, post-election. Someone must eventually lead it. Just who will consume Liberals (again) for months.
Whoever leads better face reality, not myths. Even today, too many people call the Liberals “Canada's natural governing party.” They aren't, and haven't been for a long time.
Conservatives and Liberals have roughly split power evenly since 1984. Today, the Conservatives are newly re-elected (albeit with a minority), better financed and organized, and growing in every part of Canada, except perhaps Quebec.
Liberals, by contrast, are pitifully weak west of Ontario, largely absent from Quebec outside Montreal and environs, and have been beaten in the industrial cities of Ontario outside Toronto: Hamilton, Windsor, Kitchener, Sudbury, Thunder Bay.
The coalition that sustained Pierre Trudeau has largely vanished. No more Quebec. No more industrial Ontario. No more swaths of support in Western Canada. Tories are increasingly competitive in ethnic communities. What's left for the Liberals are Atlantic Canadian strongholds, Montreal ridings with lots of ethnic voters, the Greater Toronto Area, a little pocket in central Vancouver, and scattered ridings such as one in Regina and the Yukon seat.
This shrunken hulk is also broke. A Liberal government under Jean Chrétien passed a law for financing parties. It abolished union and corporate contributions and set a $5,000 limit. With it, the Liberals shot themselves in both feet.
The party had relied more than others on large individual and corporate contributions. At a stroke, these vanished, and so did the Liberals' financial underpinning. The new law's public, per vote subsidy couldn't make up the difference, since the act's entry into force coincided with the decline in Liberal votes that has continued since Mr. Chrétien left office. Matters were made worse for the Liberals when Prime Minister Stephen Harper dropped the maximum contribution to $1,100.
Finances aside, the Liberals have lost their voice in large parts of Canada.
Quebec's political culture is highly nationalistic. What exists there are various shadings of nationalism. The Liberals are still perceived in the province as strongly federalist and not terribly welcoming to nationalist discourse. The shadow of the sponsorship scandal hasn't entirely gone away, either.
The West overwhelmingly sees Liberals as a Central Canadian party. Every leader in its history has come from Ontario and Quebec, except perhaps for John Turner, who was born in British Columbia. Stéphane Dion and those who want to succeed him are mostly from Ontario and Quebec, too. In the divided left-right world of provincial politics on the Prairies, the centrist Liberals are a marginal force – just as they are federally.
The Liberal Party always was a big-tent, protean kind of party, full of shadings and interests. Power, however, kept the party united, and pushed differences underground.
Once the party lost power in 1984, it developed the debilitating habits of factionalism and disagreements over policy. The frustrations of opposition have only deepened them.
The Turner-Chrétien rivalry was succeeded by the Chrétien-Paul Martin rivalry. The last leadership campaign reflected the absence of an obvious successor, so that Mr. Dion emerged as the winner – the least objectionable second choice for the largest number of delegates
It was superficially an impressive victory to come from behind and win. But that kind of victory contained seeds of trouble: defeated candidates, badmouthing, lack of cohesion, debts, all compounded by Mr. Dion's inability to listen and form a team.
The factions remain: the supporters of Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff and maybe other defeated candidates last time, waiting to reassemble for another go. The party would dearly love to find someone other than these two men in their early 60s – someone in his or her late 40s or early 50s. A scan of possible names reveals a disturbing paucity of genuine leadership talent. When a party shrinks, so does the talent pool. So does the money pool.
The Liberals, with a dreadful record on climate change in office, tried to paint themselves green in electing Mr. Dion. His Green Shift tax policy flopped, whatever its intellectual merits. With the economy tanking, the environment will fade somewhat as an issue.
The Liberals will need a leader who can speak (in both official languages) intelligently about the economy, someone who knows how to run things should the country sour on the Harper Conservatives, an orator who can inspire, and one who is open to new ideas that might put the party back into the discourse in the wide swaths of Canada where the party has almost disappeared.
JEFFREY SIMPSON
From Monday's Globe and Mail
October 20, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT
Beaten, broke, divided and diminished. That's the Liberal Party, post-election. Someone must eventually lead it. Just who will consume Liberals (again) for months.
Whoever leads better face reality, not myths. Even today, too many people call the Liberals “Canada's natural governing party.” They aren't, and haven't been for a long time.
Conservatives and Liberals have roughly split power evenly since 1984. Today, the Conservatives are newly re-elected (albeit with a minority), better financed and organized, and growing in every part of Canada, except perhaps Quebec.
Liberals, by contrast, are pitifully weak west of Ontario, largely absent from Quebec outside Montreal and environs, and have been beaten in the industrial cities of Ontario outside Toronto: Hamilton, Windsor, Kitchener, Sudbury, Thunder Bay.
The coalition that sustained Pierre Trudeau has largely vanished. No more Quebec. No more industrial Ontario. No more swaths of support in Western Canada. Tories are increasingly competitive in ethnic communities. What's left for the Liberals are Atlantic Canadian strongholds, Montreal ridings with lots of ethnic voters, the Greater Toronto Area, a little pocket in central Vancouver, and scattered ridings such as one in Regina and the Yukon seat.
This shrunken hulk is also broke. A Liberal government under Jean Chrétien passed a law for financing parties. It abolished union and corporate contributions and set a $5,000 limit. With it, the Liberals shot themselves in both feet.
The party had relied more than others on large individual and corporate contributions. At a stroke, these vanished, and so did the Liberals' financial underpinning. The new law's public, per vote subsidy couldn't make up the difference, since the act's entry into force coincided with the decline in Liberal votes that has continued since Mr. Chrétien left office. Matters were made worse for the Liberals when Prime Minister Stephen Harper dropped the maximum contribution to $1,100.
Finances aside, the Liberals have lost their voice in large parts of Canada.
Quebec's political culture is highly nationalistic. What exists there are various shadings of nationalism. The Liberals are still perceived in the province as strongly federalist and not terribly welcoming to nationalist discourse. The shadow of the sponsorship scandal hasn't entirely gone away, either.
The West overwhelmingly sees Liberals as a Central Canadian party. Every leader in its history has come from Ontario and Quebec, except perhaps for John Turner, who was born in British Columbia. Stéphane Dion and those who want to succeed him are mostly from Ontario and Quebec, too. In the divided left-right world of provincial politics on the Prairies, the centrist Liberals are a marginal force – just as they are federally.
The Liberal Party always was a big-tent, protean kind of party, full of shadings and interests. Power, however, kept the party united, and pushed differences underground.
Once the party lost power in 1984, it developed the debilitating habits of factionalism and disagreements over policy. The frustrations of opposition have only deepened them.
The Turner-Chrétien rivalry was succeeded by the Chrétien-Paul Martin rivalry. The last leadership campaign reflected the absence of an obvious successor, so that Mr. Dion emerged as the winner – the least objectionable second choice for the largest number of delegates
It was superficially an impressive victory to come from behind and win. But that kind of victory contained seeds of trouble: defeated candidates, badmouthing, lack of cohesion, debts, all compounded by Mr. Dion's inability to listen and form a team.
The factions remain: the supporters of Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff and maybe other defeated candidates last time, waiting to reassemble for another go. The party would dearly love to find someone other than these two men in their early 60s – someone in his or her late 40s or early 50s. A scan of possible names reveals a disturbing paucity of genuine leadership talent. When a party shrinks, so does the talent pool. So does the money pool.
The Liberals, with a dreadful record on climate change in office, tried to paint themselves green in electing Mr. Dion. His Green Shift tax policy flopped, whatever its intellectual merits. With the economy tanking, the environment will fade somewhat as an issue.
The Liberals will need a leader who can speak (in both official languages) intelligently about the economy, someone who knows how to run things should the country sour on the Harper Conservatives, an orator who can inspire, and one who is open to new ideas that might put the party back into the discourse in the wide swaths of Canada where the party has almost disappeared.
The Liberal Party needs more than a new leader
JEFFREY SIMPSON
From Monday's Globe and Mail
October 20, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT
Beaten, broke, divided and diminished. That's the Liberal Party, post-election. Someone must eventually lead it. Just who will consume Liberals (again) for months.
Whoever leads better face reality, not myths. Even today, too many people call the Liberals “Canada's natural governing party.” They aren't, and haven't been for a long time.
Conservatives and Liberals have roughly split power evenly since 1984. Today, the Conservatives are newly re-elected (albeit with a minority), better financed and organized, and growing in every part of Canada, except perhaps Quebec.
Liberals, by contrast, are pitifully weak west of Ontario, largely absent from Quebec outside Montreal and environs, and have been beaten in the industrial cities of Ontario outside Toronto: Hamilton, Windsor, Kitchener, Sudbury, Thunder Bay.
The coalition that sustained Pierre Trudeau has largely vanished. No more Quebec. No more industrial Ontario. No more swaths of support in Western Canada. Tories are increasingly competitive in ethnic communities. What's left for the Liberals are Atlantic Canadian strongholds, Montreal ridings with lots of ethnic voters, the Greater Toronto Area, a little pocket in central Vancouver, and scattered ridings such as one in Regina and the Yukon seat.
This shrunken hulk is also broke. A Liberal government under Jean Chrétien passed a law for financing parties. It abolished union and corporate contributions and set a $5,000 limit. With it, the Liberals shot themselves in both feet.
The party had relied more than others on large individual and corporate contributions. At a stroke, these vanished, and so did the Liberals' financial underpinning. The new law's public, per vote subsidy couldn't make up the difference, since the act's entry into force coincided with the decline in Liberal votes that has continued since Mr. Chrétien left office. Matters were made worse for the Liberals when Prime Minister Stephen Harper dropped the maximum contribution to $1,100.
Finances aside, the Liberals have lost their voice in large parts of Canada.
Quebec's political culture is highly nationalistic. What exists there are various shadings of nationalism. The Liberals are still perceived in the province as strongly federalist and not terribly welcoming to nationalist discourse. The shadow of the sponsorship scandal hasn't entirely gone away, either.
The West overwhelmingly sees Liberals as a Central Canadian party. Every leader in its history has come from Ontario and Quebec, except perhaps for John Turner, who was born in British Columbia. Stéphane Dion and those who want to succeed him are mostly from Ontario and Quebec, too. In the divided left-right world of provincial politics on the Prairies, the centrist Liberals are a marginal force – just as they are federally.
The Liberal Party always was a big-tent, protean kind of party, full of shadings and interests. Power, however, kept the party united, and pushed differences underground.
Once the party lost power in 1984, it developed the debilitating habits of factionalism and disagreements over policy. The frustrations of opposition have only deepened them.
The Turner-Chrétien rivalry was succeeded by the Chrétien-Paul Martin rivalry. The last leadership campaign reflected the absence of an obvious successor, so that Mr. Dion emerged as the winner – the least objectionable second choice for the largest number of delegates
It was superficially an impressive victory to come from behind and win. But that kind of victory contained seeds of trouble: defeated candidates, badmouthing, lack of cohesion, debts, all compounded by Mr. Dion's inability to listen and form a team.
The factions remain: the supporters of Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff and maybe other defeated candidates last time, waiting to reassemble for another go. The party would dearly love to find someone other than these two men in their early 60s – someone in his or her late 40s or early 50s. A scan of possible names reveals a disturbing paucity of genuine leadership talent. When a party shrinks, so does the talent pool. So does the money pool.
The Liberals, with a dreadful record on climate change in office, tried to paint themselves green in electing Mr. Dion. His Green Shift tax policy flopped, whatever its intellectual merits. With the economy tanking, the environment will fade somewhat as an issue.
The Liberals will need a leader who can speak (in both official languages) intelligently about the economy, someone who knows how to run things should the country sour on the Harper Conservatives, an orator who can inspire, and one who is open to new ideas that might put the party back into the discourse in the wide swaths of Canada where the party has almost disappeared.
Good Morning,
Walter, I believe that you have put it best.
Regards,
scratch