I admire Stephane Dion, the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Opposition.
Dr. Dion is an accomplished political scientist and economist, whose bona fides as a professor and senior fellow of the Brookings Institute speaks for itself.
He is a courageous Canadian federalist, who was instrumental as Chretien's Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in the passage of the Clarity Act, which helped to make Quebec secession much more difficult.
He is a vocal environmentalist, who made sustainable development the keystone of his leadership campaign, and was an important figure in passage of the Kyoto Treaty on Climate Change in Canada, an important piece of international law.
He is a voice for Canadian independence in international relations, and was part of the Chretien cabinet when that government decided to stay out of the American invasion of Iraq.
But....
Stephane Dion may be an electoral disaster for the Liberals, helping to seal a Conservative majority if and when the current minority Conservative government falls and/or seeks dissolution of Parliament.
Why? Consider the following:
- Dion's association with the Clarity Act (see http://en.wikipedia.org/... is seen by many Quebecers - both federalist and nationalist - as undermining the province's right to self-determination. Now, whatever you may think about whether a province even has a such right (I personally think they shouldn't), the fact is it has made his name mud in Quebec. Dion is thus in an unenviable gallery of recent Francophone leaders from Quebec who are - paradoxially - disliked intensely by most Quebecers: Trudeau, Chretien, and now Dion.
- Dion's record on the environment, while suffused with cheery rhetoric, was disappointing. Yes, he was a key player in the Kyoto Accord coming into effect in Canada, and was vocal on the world stage concerning its enforcement. But during his tenure as Environment Minister, the Canadian government had no effective strategy to reduce carbon emissions, and, in fact, Canada's emissions have increased more substantially than that of the United States, which has signed but not ratified the Treaty.
- While Dion is unpopular among Francophones in Quebec for his perceived denigration of Quebec's rights and status; he is unopoular in certain parts of the rest of Canada for being a Francophone from Quebec. Such are the paradoxes of Canadian poltics! Canada has been governed by a Prime Minister from Quebec for 37 of the past 40 years; and for 26 of those years, that head of government has been a Francophone. For many, particularly in the Prairie provinces, this smack of disenranchisement. It doesn't help for Anglophone Canadians that Dion's English is not great and heavily accented.
- For what it's worth, the man has the charisma of a carrot. Of course, so does Stephen Harper, so I guess it's a draw.
I wish Dion the best - all things being equal, he is an intelligent, thoughtful, and imaginative leader - one who appears to have his priorities straight. But a leader who is disliked in Quebec, who faces an uphill battle in English Canada - especially Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, whose record does not match his rhetoric, and who is less than a forceful presence, does not necessarily bode well for Liberalism. The party may have been better off with Bob Rae, despite his particular baggage as Ontario premier, than with a man who may indeed hand the Tories the majority they seek.