Warren Kinsella: How Dion can get his groove back

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Principled, honest, decent and fearless? What planet does Kinsella live on. Dion has just chickened out and swallowed all his principles and saved the Conservatives, all because his party is down in the polls and doesn't want an election.
The Liberal party position is just to end the combat aspect of the Afghan mission not to withdraw as Kinsella claims. As the Conservatives have pointed out the Liberals are the ones who through their inaction have made it impossible to meet Kyoto targets. Of course it is a good idea to do the best possible and not simply throw in the towel as Harper has done but the Liberals are not angels on the environment.
Kinsella seems to have been mesmerised by Liberal goofy slogan such as: The People do not know Dion. Trouble is the people now know him pretty well. He cannot stand up to people in his own party. He lost his chief aide. He caved on saving his authenticity by saving the Conservative Throne Speech. On and on....


Warren Kinsella: How Dion can get his groove back
Sad. That is the only way to describe the plight of Liberal leader Stephane Dion. But it's not all his own doing. For Mr. Dion's Liberal party, the Gomery Commission was a shattering blow --discrediting federalism and the perception that Liberals could manage government, all at once. The party has yet to recover from it.

The selection of Mr. Dion as Liberal leader last December in Montreal was the right decision. Principled, honest, decent and fearless, Mr. Dion was one of the few Quebec Liberal politicians to emerge from the sponsorship affair personally unscathed. He was respected in English Canada for his battles with the separatists, and his environmental credentials positioned him as the right candidate at the right time.

But the intervening months, as we all know, have not been kind to Mr. Dion or his party. Listless, divided, drifting, the Liberal party seems to be headed sooner or later for a punishing defeat at the hands of the better-funded, better-organized Conservative machine of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

But it need not be that way. Here are a few modest suggestions for the beleaguered federal Grit leader that, if implemented, would go some way to lifting his and Liberal fortunes:

-Policy: On the key issues of the day --Kyoto, Afghanistan and federalism-- Mr. Dion and his party are well positioned. In all three cases, he needs to clearly distinguish himself from the other political parties.

He can do that by saying, to all who will listen: "We are the party that will ratify Kyoto, not kill it. We are the party that will bring back our young men and women from Afghanistan within a year of our election, and not at some distant date in

the future. And we are the party that opposes dismantling federalism by stealth, as Stephen Harper promised to do in his Throne Speech. Under a Liberal government, Ottawa will not become the headwaiter to the provinces."

-People: As with the two other opposition leaders --including the aforementioned Mr. Harper -- the Canadian people do not yet know Stephane Dion. That is how it is when you are in opposition. Mr. Dion needs to launch a populist charm offensive, travelling regularly to regional media markets, holding policy conferences so that the media and voters can get to know him. He shouldn't change who he is (a "strategy" that never works, anyway).

-Press: As the Post's freelance media observer, I can assure Mr. Dion of one thing: The national media are not fans of the current Conservative regime. As one former prime minister once said to me: "In this job, you don't end up liking the media very much. The key is to never show it." For reasons best known to himself, Mr. Harper shows it. Mr. Dion, therefore, needs to coddle and cajole the press corps whenever and however possible. It may sound hokey, but it'll work. Like everyone else, journalists do not want to be treated like criminals for doing their job.

-Party: Since December, the Grits have been in desperate need of new blood. Too many Martin-era advisors cling to Mr. Dion's robes, mainly because none of them could find meaningful work anywhere else. Too many Members of Parliament seem to be watching the clock, loitering in the House of Commons to bolster their MP pensions. Dion needs to clean out the stables, bringing in better, experienced staff, as well as a younger gang of candidates, as diverse as the country they would hope to serve. In Ontario, Mr. Dion need look no further than the Dalton McGuinty team, whose battle-ready veterans know how to take him to the next level. (Full disclosure: During the election campaign, I fought on a voluntary basis with Team McGuinty myself. But I might add that I have no personal interest in returning to federal politics.)

-Finally, the Dion Liberals need to quit their whining. Sure, opposition is no fun. Sure, it's frustrating. But the last election, as I recall, was mainly about sending the Liberal Party of Canada to the penalty box for a while, so that it can learn a few lessons. Until it learns those lessons, the Liberal party will remain what it is. Which is to say, mired on the opposition benches and sad.

-Warren Kinsella's new book, The War Room, is published this month by Dundurn