Dion 'ready to go' on PM's dare
Liberal Leader set to fight election over green plan
Article Comments (454) JANE TABER
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
August 7, 2008 at 1:00 AM EDT
OTTAWA — Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and his top strategists will meet next week at Stornoway, his official Ottawa residence, to devise a response to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's election dare.
The meeting comes just a few weeks before the national Liberal caucus is to gather in Winnipeg for its annual summer meeting. Mr. Dion has told his MPs he wants to hear what their constituents are saying about his carbon tax or Green Shift plan, which he plans to make the centrepiece of the Liberal election platform.
At the last strategy meeting a couple of months ago, one insider said Mr. Dion spent more than an hour trying to explain his environmental plan, which was so complicated even his top aides had trouble understanding it. Some Liberals feel that if it's too difficult to sell in 30 seconds at the door, voters will tune out.
There are growing signs that both Mr. Dion and Mr. Harper want a fall election. Liberal MPs and top strategists say Mr. Dion wants to try to defeat the Harper government soon after the House of Commons returns to work on Sept. 15.
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Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion Liberal and his top strategists will meet next week at Stornoway, his official Ottawa residence. (Sami Siva\The Globe and Mail)
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“I think it's [an election] inevitable this fall,” said one senior Liberal MP. “My sense is that for the first time in months the Dion people and the campaign people are no longer coming up with a list of reasons why they need to buy time. It's a pretty dramatic change.”
According to a Dion adviser, the Opposition Leader is feeling pretty good about himself.
“I think he feels much more ready to go [to the polls],” said the adviser. “He is more confident and more focused. The Green Shift has given him a sense of purpose and boldness. He is absolutely convinced he has a better plan for Canada than Harper does.”
Last week, Mr. Harper challenged the Liberals to pass Conservative measures on crime, the economy and the environment, or go to the polls.
“Either we govern or we go to an election,” Mr. Harper said in a partisan speech in Quebec where the federal Conservatives held their summer retreat. The Prime Minister spent much of his public time during the retreat criticizing the Dion green plan.
As election fever grew Wednesday, Elections Canada released documents showing that Mr. Dion still owes $690,000 from his leadership bid in 2006.
However, the documents were filed June 3. Since then, Liberal MPs have held fundraisers that have whittled down Mr. Dion's debt to $250,000, a Liberal official said.
The official said Mr. Dion will have everything paid off by the fall, another indication that he is getting election-ready.
Months of uncertainty about the timing of the next election has started to cause some problems for the Liberals. On Wednesday, the candidate in the PEI riding of Egmont said he could no longer stand as he has taken alternative employment.
Senior Liberals, such as foreign-affairs critic Bob Rae and deputy leader Michael Ignatieff, have been quiet over the summer, staying away from election speculation.
Mr. Ignatieff has most recently been touring Atlantic Canada, helping the Young Liberals at their recent meetings in Newfoundland and attending the Atlantic caucus meeting this week.
One insider said that both Mr. Rae and Mr. Ignatieff support going to the polls this fall as do House Leader Ralph Goodale, Whip Karen Redman and finance critic John McCallum.
Some Liberals are also looking south of the border to the U.S. presidential election Nov. 4 to decide when to pull the plug.
“The sweet spot for calling a general election would be late November … so you give people a little bit of an effect of the afterglow of hope and change with Obama,” said one veteran Liberal MP, referring to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama.
This would mean also trying to defeat the government in mid-to late September. And the strategy, of course, hinges on a win by the Illinois senator over Republican John
