Tweet
Preface:
The juice:
The juice:
Dion expected to announce resignation Monday
October 17, 2008 at 12:30 PM EDT
Stéphane Dion is to expected to announce Monday that he will step aside as Liberal Leader.
Mr. Dion has not spoken in public since Tuesday night after the election results in which his party lost 19 seats and polled its lowest level of popular support since Confederation.
Liberal party officials said today Mr. Dion will speak Monday about his plans.
It is expected, according to sources, that he will say he is stepping aside and that there will be a leadership convention in May. It is not clear, however, whether he will remain as the interim leader.
There is much speculation that he will not stay as the leader, although some MPs have said they would not be averse to the prospect.
However, there is speculation that Markham MP John McCallum, who is bilingual, Saskatchewan MP Ralph Goodale and even Toronto MP Ken Dryden could serve as interim leaders.
Envoys for at least half a dozen prominent Liberals have begun making exploratory forays for cash and support for leadership bids.
People close to MPs Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, Gerard Kennedy and Dominic LeBlanc, former deputy prime minister John Manley and former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna were contacting influential party members to test the waters.
An associate of Mr. Manley sent an e-mail to 40 people suggesting “coyly,” as one of the recipients put it, that Mr. Manley might be interested in the party leadership. Similar but even more low-key overtures were being made by associates of Mr. McKenna, although they emphasized that he was far removed from putting out feelers.
What representatives of would-be candidates made clear in conversations was their strong wish to avoid the optics of any indecent clamouring for Mr. Dion's job while he still occupies it.
There were rumours that leadership aspirants who might have scanty access to cash – Mr. Kennedy and neophyte MP Justin Trudeau, son of the former prime minister, were named – had been urging Mr. Dion to remain in the leader's job until they could have a run at raising enough money to be competitive entries in the race to succeed him.
“Money is driving everything,” a senior party member said yesterday.
While it would benefit candidates with limited resources if a leadership campaign could be delayed, sources close to Mr. Dion categorically denied the reports, and Mr. Kennedy said there was “no truth at all to that idea.”
If Mr. Dion steps down now, and next May's scheduled leadership review is turned into a full-blown leadership convention, the serious aspirants for Mr. Dion's job would have to enter the new year with about $2-million either borrowed or pledged.
The party's coffers are empty – and, indeed, the need for an effective new fundraising mechanism is the Liberals' most pressing problem after their leadership difficulties.
Leading contenders such as Mr. Rae and Mr. Ignatieff have just finished paying off the cost of their candidacies in the 2006 leadership campaign that Mr. Dion won. Mr. Kennedy still has debts from that race.
Mr. Manley assembled a leadership team in 2003 to challenge former prime minister Paul Martin for the party's leadership, but called it quits when he concluded he had no hope of victory.
His financial backers and fundraisers for the most part are now in the Ignatieff camp. Some influential party members who worked for him in 2003 felt he didn't show gratitude for their efforts or maintain a network of support. He also alienated people in the party by accepting a commission from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to head a panel advising the government on Canada's role in Afghanistan.
Mr. McKenna, now deputy chairman of the Toronto-Dominion Bank and a former ambassador to Washington, is believed to have no money worries should he choose to enter the race.
But he personally has given no signal that he is interested, and the betting among party insiders is that he will do what he did in the run-up to the 2006 convention: enjoy having his name mentioned but stay out of the contest.
The parliamentary caucus is about evenly divided in its support for Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Rae, who came second and third, respectively, after Mr. Dion in 2006. But a significant chunk of MPs – so-called soft supporters of the two men – fear a party cleavage in an Ignatieff-Rae contest and would be open to a third candidate.
October 17, 2008 at 12:30 PM EDT
Stéphane Dion is to expected to announce Monday that he will step aside as Liberal Leader.
Mr. Dion has not spoken in public since Tuesday night after the election results in which his party lost 19 seats and polled its lowest level of popular support since Confederation.
Liberal party officials said today Mr. Dion will speak Monday about his plans.
It is expected, according to sources, that he will say he is stepping aside and that there will be a leadership convention in May. It is not clear, however, whether he will remain as the interim leader.
There is much speculation that he will not stay as the leader, although some MPs have said they would not be averse to the prospect.
However, there is speculation that Markham MP John McCallum, who is bilingual, Saskatchewan MP Ralph Goodale and even Toronto MP Ken Dryden could serve as interim leaders.
Envoys for at least half a dozen prominent Liberals have begun making exploratory forays for cash and support for leadership bids.
People close to MPs Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, Gerard Kennedy and Dominic LeBlanc, former deputy prime minister John Manley and former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna were contacting influential party members to test the waters.
An associate of Mr. Manley sent an e-mail to 40 people suggesting “coyly,” as one of the recipients put it, that Mr. Manley might be interested in the party leadership. Similar but even more low-key overtures were being made by associates of Mr. McKenna, although they emphasized that he was far removed from putting out feelers.
What representatives of would-be candidates made clear in conversations was their strong wish to avoid the optics of any indecent clamouring for Mr. Dion's job while he still occupies it.
There were rumours that leadership aspirants who might have scanty access to cash – Mr. Kennedy and neophyte MP Justin Trudeau, son of the former prime minister, were named – had been urging Mr. Dion to remain in the leader's job until they could have a run at raising enough money to be competitive entries in the race to succeed him.
“Money is driving everything,” a senior party member said yesterday.
While it would benefit candidates with limited resources if a leadership campaign could be delayed, sources close to Mr. Dion categorically denied the reports, and Mr. Kennedy said there was “no truth at all to that idea.”
If Mr. Dion steps down now, and next May's scheduled leadership review is turned into a full-blown leadership convention, the serious aspirants for Mr. Dion's job would have to enter the new year with about $2-million either borrowed or pledged.
The party's coffers are empty – and, indeed, the need for an effective new fundraising mechanism is the Liberals' most pressing problem after their leadership difficulties.
Leading contenders such as Mr. Rae and Mr. Ignatieff have just finished paying off the cost of their candidacies in the 2006 leadership campaign that Mr. Dion won. Mr. Kennedy still has debts from that race.
Mr. Manley assembled a leadership team in 2003 to challenge former prime minister Paul Martin for the party's leadership, but called it quits when he concluded he had no hope of victory.
His financial backers and fundraisers for the most part are now in the Ignatieff camp. Some influential party members who worked for him in 2003 felt he didn't show gratitude for their efforts or maintain a network of support. He also alienated people in the party by accepting a commission from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to head a panel advising the government on Canada's role in Afghanistan.
Mr. McKenna, now deputy chairman of the Toronto-Dominion Bank and a former ambassador to Washington, is believed to have no money worries should he choose to enter the race.
But he personally has given no signal that he is interested, and the betting among party insiders is that he will do what he did in the run-up to the 2006 convention: enjoy having his name mentioned but stay out of the contest.
The parliamentary caucus is about evenly divided in its support for Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Rae, who came second and third, respectively, after Mr. Dion in 2006. But a significant chunk of MPs – so-called soft supporters of the two men – fear a party cleavage in an Ignatieff-Rae contest and would be open to a third candidate.
Comment