Sunday, December 7, 2008

Stephane Dion's Last Days As Liberal Leader?

Coalition supporters wanted December 8th to become Stephen Harper's last day as Prime Minister. Instead, according to CTV, this could become one of Stephane Dion's last days as Liberal leader.
The Liberal caucus is to meet on Wednesday, which will include 57 MPs who support Ignatieff, Oliver said. They would "almost certainly" vote to make Ignatieff their parliamentary leader, putting immense pressure on Liberal MP Bob Rae to drop out of the leadership race.

Oliver said that sources close to Rae said he's a team player and will drop out so the Liberals can focus on pressing national issues.
The recent CTV newscast suggests that Dion may step down as early as tomorrow, becoming the third Liberal leader ever (after Edward Blake and Daniel Duncan McKenzie) who never gets to be Prime Minister. The first of a kind in almost 90 years. (And many more!!!)

And what about the coalition? It looks like not every Liberal MP was supporting the idea. So, the coalition began crumbling right after the prorogation. If Michael Ignatieff does become the next Liberal leader before the Parliament resumes - then the coalition is gone for good. Most likely - Ignatieff and Harper find some common ground that would allow both parties to save face and to declare themselves winners. Otherwise - we'll simply have a new election.

1 comment:

Patrick Ross said...

Won't it be fun when the Liberal party can't harp about Iraq any more?