Barrel Strength

Dion was the victim of his own inadequacies – he is an academic with no leadership abilities and everyone knows it by now, including the wizards in the Liberal party who thought he was a wonderful ‘compromise’ candidate. For starters, Dion’s English-language deficiencies disqualify him as the Prime Minister of Canada (or even Premier of Quebec) in the 21st century. His disdainful unwillingness to give the study of English the attention that it needs are part and parcel of the man – even his academic colleagues described him as arrogant and inclined to lecture condescendingly people who don’t agree with him. I would bet his handlers tried to tell him his English needed work and he refused to believe them. That being said, Chretien mangled English frequently but still produced successive majority governments.

The centrepiece of the Liberal platform this time around was the kind of policy a friend likes to call “a big stupid idea” – a carbon tax that made no sense, would cost all taxpayers a bundle and gave no indication it would achieve its goals. No one could have sold it to voters, especially in the current economic ‘climate’, least of all the inarticulate Dion.

But in the bigger picture beyond Dion, I think the Liberals’ claim to be “the natural governing party” doesn’t resonate much outside central Toronto anymore. Furthermore, I believe the days when the Liberals could count on the ‘immigrant vote’ are fast receding. Many of them have achieved financial success through hard work and aren’t interested in seeing their gains erased by endless tax increases to fund ill-conceived, social engineering schemes intended to create equality of outcome – the holy grail of the left. They headed for the exit and as long as the Tories have someone reasonable in charge with conservative fiscal and tax policies, the party should be able to hold on to those voters in Ontario and BC.