Stephane Dion – Liberals Ready For A Spring Election

Less than a month ago, Liberal Opposition leader Stephane Dion said that his party did not want an election and neither did most Canadians and was accusing the governing Conservatives of trying to engineer one. Today Mr. Dion has completely changed his tune and is now saying that the Liberal party are ready to face the Conservatives in a spring election.

Dion says Liberals ready for a spring election

"2008 will be another ball game," he said. "You cannot keep alive forever a government who wants to die."

He said Liberal MPs have been forced to abstain from key confidence votes, allowing the Conservatives to push through key legislation, because Canadians were opposed to the idea of a third election in three years.

Now, he said, Canadians have had enough of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and are ready for a change.

Really! If Canadians were really ready for a change, you would see it in the poll results, right?

The reality is that the popular opinion polls have not moved in favour of the Liberals. In fact, the Conservatives have maintained the same level of support that they had when the defeated the governing Liberal party, and at the same time, support for the Liberals have not increased.

I am not sure on what basis Dion's party will be ready for a spring election. Lets look at the reality their party has to deal with:

• Political donations to the Liberal party are lagging and are far below the Conservatives. In addition, the Liberal finances are in bad shape, as they still millions of dollars in debt.
• The Liberals are still where they were in terms of popular support when they lost the 2006 Federal elections to the Tories. They have not been able to increase their numbers.
• Stephane Dion still has an image problem among Canadians and lags far behind Prime Minister, Stephen Harper and even NDP leader Jack Layton in terms of personal popularity.
• Approximately 20% of the Liberal caucus has either resigned or indicated that they will not be running in the next federal election. This is hardly a good sign of a party ready to fight an election.
• The Liberals under Dion’s leadership have failed to give their party the renewal that it needed to distance itself from its past problems. Dion has been mostly vague in the direction that he wants to take the party and this has resulted in many Canadians not being able to say what either he or his party stands for.

It will be interesting to see how the Liberals will run an effective election campaign against the Conservatives with Dion at the helm. If Dion conducts his election campaign in the same way in which he has performed as Liberal opposition leader, the Conservatives will be cruising to victory once again.