Politics - and that's a photo of a tomatillo

Copyright Ruth Seeley

I’m glad I didn’t watch the entire Liberal leadership convention on Saturday – watching the last half hour was enough of a body blow.

Where to begin the discussion of the horrors of this convention? The startling news that Bob Rae, who was a lifelong NDP member and the guy who led the NDP to their only victory in Ontario provincial politics, was now a Liberal in his unceasing quest not really for power, I don’t think, but for the limelight, was pretty shocking. As a lifelong non-affiliated federal Liberal, I was amazed that the party would take him. Anyone who witnessed Bob Rae’s appearance on Ralph Benmergui’s short-lived TV variety show a decade or so ago (when Rae was premier of Ontario and first revealed he had no principles by introducing anti-labour legislation that seemed designed to smack the unions that had helped elect him), must have realized something about this man: he likes to be the centre of attention and he doesn’t much care what he has to do to stay in the spotlight. Rae’s appearance on that show was a travesty. Claiming that his grandfather had been in vaudeville (implying that he was genetically worth watching as a performer), he persisted in playing the piano. With a sense of rhythm that can only be described as gooey (as opposed to elastic), Rae slowed the song’s tempo repeatedly despite the band’s talented efforts to keep it consistent. It was one long ritardando and had it not been so horrifying I would have switched channels. Swan song, you say? I think swans sing about as well as Rae does.

Then there was the rather crowded field of high profile candidates. Yes, there were a few people I had never heard of or hadn’t heard much about – four years of living in British Columbia has induced a slightly isolationist stance in me. Gerard Kennedy, Ken Dryden, Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff, and Stephane Dion were five very high profile contenders for a single spot. And yet none was as high profile as candidates like John Turner and Jean Chretien when they twice duked it out for the leadership of the federal Liberals. Even Marc Lalonde was a higher profile candidate than these guys, in terms of tenure as a high profile cabinet minister and recognition throughout the country.

Joan Bryden’s interesting article (below) on what went on behind the scenes at the convention in terms of momentum and Kennedy’s supporters explains a lot. I wondered why Kennedy would throw his support behind Dion, but I suppose it makes sense given his opposition to the Ignatieff Quebec nation initiative. As for Bob Rae – well – I’d like a more convincing explanation of why he didn’t direct his delegates to vote for Ignatieff in the final ballot. And frankly, Scarlett? I blame Rae for the fact that the Liberals now don’t have a hope in hell of forming a government in the next decade. No offense to Stephane Dion, but he hasn’t been the highest profile cabinet minister in a Liberal government – and he’s been Minister of the Environment at a time when the best you could do in terms of Liberal environmental policy was to damn them with faint praise. Initiatives like the EnerGuide for Houses™ program were pretty feeble attempts to meet our Kyoto commitments – and the fact that the program existed for something like seven years before the Liberals put anything into promoting it speaks volumes. But there’s more to it than that. I don’t think Canada is ready at the moment for yet another Quebecois prime minister. If the candidate in question was Trudeau, maybe. But I think, given the length of time the Liberals have been in power federally in the last half century, the increasing sense of Western alienation, and the fact that Stephen Harper has proved to be less of an embarrassment than many of us anti-Conservatives expected, the polls may well be wrong (Liberals have apparently leapt six points in the polls since Dion became their leader). I certainly don’t expect a Liberal majority government to be elected in the spring of 2007. And I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/061203/national/libs_leader_behind_scenes