Whether it was his poor command of English or the foolish decision to base an electoral campaign on increasing taxes through some sort of green tax, the public wasn't having any of it and so after an electoral disaster he was shown the door rather indelicately.
While the Liberals were glad to see Dion leave, few would have guessed that the next leader, Michael Ignatieff, everything Dion wasn't, would turn out to be infinitely less successful.
One might have assumed that Dion would fade away politically but he soldiered on and has survived the Liberal massacre of May 2, being returned to Parliament by voters in the Montreal riding of St. Laurent where his ethnic and English base remained more loyal than his Liberal confreres.
In the aftermath of the election slaughter and no prospect of another election for four years, the Liberal party has announced that it is hunkering down for an extended period of introspection and re-building, even opting to delay the choice of a new leader for eighteen months. And so like a wounded animal that slinks away to lick its wounds, the Liberals have exited the political battlefield and ceded the fight, or so it seems.
Out of the ashes of the electoral meltdown, Dion has risen like the Phoenix to reclaim past glories when he stood head and shoulders above all, battling the separatists successfully to the point where to Quebec militants, he became the most hated Quebecker since Pierre-Eliot Trudeau.
His successful letter campaign, wherein Dion wrote detailed and exhaustive rebuttals against separatist propaganda in a series of Op-Ed pieces in newspapers across the country, enraged separatists who fumed at the the calm and collected and professorial manner in which he destroyed their positions.
Dion's greatest achievement was the Clarity Act, a law that creates rules for any future referendum. The law allows for separation but only after a clear referendum question is asked and a clear majority is received.
As much as separatists hate the law, Dion never fails to remind them that it is the law of the land, with the underlying message that to ignore its precepts would mean that the only road to independence would be a unilateral declaration of independence, something almost impossible to sell in Quebec.
Unlike most of his Liberal party cohorts, Dion is not a disheartened or beaten man, his election was a personal triumph, one that he badly needed. Mr. Dion is still in debt vis-a-vis his leadership run and is rumoured to owe over $100,000. His job at $157K guaranteed for another four years will go a long way to assuage the financial stress. Mr. Dion at 55 has just now qualified to receive his Parliamentary pension, but by staying an extra four years (achieving twenty years in Parliament) he will assure himself of a $100K-$150K per year pension when he chooses to retire or is defeated in the next election (not likely.)
With no aspirations to become leader again (been there, done that) Mr. Dion is in a good place, financially secure and free to say and do what he wants.
What he wants to do, is to pursue his political first love, that is to confront separatists and to dispel sovereignist propaganda.
Dion has also correctly identified the Ndp as the real rival to the Liberal Party dream of reclaiming national prominence and as such a convergence of issues and circumstances has placed Jack Layton and the dippers firmly in his cross hairs.
Since Harper and the Conservatives will content themselves to majority rule and leave the political fighting to the boys across the aisle, the only logical battle is the Ndp versus the Liberals and the return of Dion to the fight augers badly for the dippers whose political positions are so eminently attackable, Dion is going to have a field day.
Even snarling Uncle Tom will match up poorly to Dion's calm and deliberate manner and if Mulcair thinks he can bait Dion into a name calling knife fight, he's badly informed.
Here's an example of Dion's intellectual prowess and what the dippers are up against. It's a speech he gave at the 8th Annual Michel Bastarache Conference at the Rideau Club in February entitled Secession and the Virtues of Clarity.
And so Dion is taking up the fight against Jack Layton, the Ndp and its hypocritical stance on Quebec sovereignty.
Here in a letter to La Press he attacks the idea of 50%+1 being enough of a margin of victory in a referendum LINK{FR}
Here he attacks the separatists hiding in the Quebec wing of the Ndp caucus;
He [Mr. Layton] should be forced to ask each of its members that they believe in Canada. And if this is not the case, he should say: "I have so many members who are separatists and who would vote " Yes" in a referendum on independence. " He should tell us what he would do, "said Mr. Dion. LINK{FR}With a majority government before us, it augers poorly for political debate. The Conservatives have nothing to gain from engaging in partisan debate (for at least three years) and so we might have expected an exceedingly boring time in Ottawa.
Dion has changed all that.
He's set the tone for the debate, chosen an opponent and demarcated the battle lines. It's going to be the Ndp versus the Liberals and the fight is going to be interesting, with the Liberals playing the Canada card and the Ndp forced to defend its Quebec position.
I wouldn't want to be staring down at Dion, his slight professorial bespectacled look belies a tenacious fighter who is just that much smarter and intelligent than his opponents.
