Liberal Leadership Race is on to Replace Dion
Canada’s Liberal Party Seeks New Leader following Election Defeat
Nov 25, 2008
Stéphane Dion’s Liberal Party suffered a crushing defeat in the October 14th Canadian federal election. Under Dion’s leadership, the party won only 76 seats in the House of Commons and achieved its lowest share of the popular vote in more than 100 years. Meanwhile, Stephen Harper's Conservative Party managed to strengthen its minority government on election night, winning an additional 19 seats to total 143.
Dion, a former Minister of the Environment under Prime Minister Paul Martin, promoted his Green Shift plan, which would have seen the implementation of Canada’s first ever carbon emissions tax, as the centerpiece of the Liberal campaign platform. Having come during the onset of a worldwide economic crisis, the plan proved extremely unpopular among the voting public.
After spending six days in media seclusion, Dion held a press conference on October 20th to announce that he would be stepping down from his post as leader of the federal Liberal Party once a new leader is chosen.
Although he lost the election, Dion has assured himself a place in the history books for being only the second Liberal Party leader to never serve as Prime Minister. The first time was in the 19th century, when Edward Blake led the party to defeat in 1882 and 1887.
Long Time Friends, Short Time Opponents
Dion was elected as leader during the party’s most recent leadership convention, held in Montréal in December of 2006. Although he spent nearly the entirety of the convention trailing frontrunners Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae in a distant third, neither Rae nor Ignatieff was able to secure a majority of the vote and Dion emerged victorious as a compromise candidate.
Since announcing that he would resign his post, both Rae and Ignatieff have begun campaigning a second time for the party’s top job. Rae served as Premier of Ontario from 1990 until 1995 as a member of the New Democratic Party (NDP) and did not return to politics until this year. Ignatieff’s political career began only in 2006 when he left a prestigious post as director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University in order to run for a seat in the House of Commons in the riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore.
Rae and Ignatieff first met in 1966 while they were both undergraduate students at the University of Toronto. The two eventually even became roommates, though the friendship has cooled recently. They campaigned against each other with rancor in 2006, resulting in a fracturing of support within the Liberal Party between the two candidates. When Rae chose to boycott a November 16th debate in Toronto after accusing rival Ignatieff of trying to block the media from attending, many feared the same old rivalry could be cropping up again in 2008.
Third Hat in the Ring
Although there were 11 different candidates vying for the Liberal leadership in 2006, this year the number of contenders has been reduced to three.
In addition to Ignatieff and Rae, 40-year-old MP Dominic LeBlanc from Beausejour, New Brunswick, has announced his desire to be the first Acadian to lead a major federal party. In an article for Macleans, LeBlanc likened himself to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama in that both men seek to remake their party for a new generation. By contrast, both Rae and Ignatieff are in their 60s and are considered members of the baby boom generation.
Starting in early May of 2009, as many as 10 000 delegates will meet in Vancouver to determine who shall succeed Stéphane Dion as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
