CANADA'S LIBERAL LEADERSHIP RACE: DION EMERGES AS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MONTREAL 001205

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

SECSTATE FOR WHA/CAN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/04/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER MARR EINV CA
SUBJECT: CANADA'S LIBERAL LEADERSHIP RACE: DION EMERGES AS
UNLIKELY WINNER

REF: QUEBEC 150

Classified By: Mary B. Marshall for reasons 1.4 b,d

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Summary
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1. (C/NF) Former Environment Minister Stephane Dion emerged
the surprise winner of the Liberal Leadership
convention, held in Montreal from November 30-December 2,
coming from fourth place to beat frontrunner Michael
Ignatieff, 2521 to 2084 delegate votes. Ignatieff, though an
eloquent and passionate speaker with a motivated
group of supporters, proved to be a divisive force within the
Liberal party and the convention itself. Dion,
in contrast, who had slowly, but steadily gained momentum
throughout the campaign, had first round votes from
fewer than 20% of the delegates at the conference's outset.
The Ignatieff and Rae camps feared Dion's moving
beyond the first round vote, as it was clear Dion would have
stronger support in second and third rounds, but
underestimated the Dion momentum. Dion's commitment to the
environment, specifically the Kyoto protocol, his
status as a respected (albeit a bit wonky) former Liberal
minister, his being seen as the candidate with the
least liabilities, as well as his strategic alliance with
fourth-place leadership contender Gerard Kennedy,
catapulted him in the successive votes to victory few pundits
thought possible. As the head of the official opposition,
Dion is likely to mount attacks on Harper's environmental
policy, Canada's continued presence in Afghanistan, and the
Conservative government's perceived overly-close relationship
with the Bush administration.
The leadership race overshadowed the lackluster policy and
procedural resolutions adopted at the Liberal
convention.

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Liberals Under Dion: His Program and Challenges for
U.S.-Canada Relations
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2. (C/NF) Dion campaigned on a three-pillar policy of
economic prosperity, social justice, and environmental
sustainability, though his victory speech left room for other
Liberal policy ideas. As expected, Dion focused
most on this third pillar, trumpeting his Kyoto credentials
during his bid for leadership (his white huskie named
Kyoto became part of the campaign effort.) However, Dion may
run into problems if he strives to use his record as
Environment Minister in Paul Martin's government as the
backbone of his campaign. Despite his endorsement of the
Kyoto Protocol and reductions in GHG emissions, his time in
the Environmental Ministry, according to a report by Canada's
Auditor General, saw expenditures on projects with
questionable contribution to GHG reductions. But the
issue of the environment is one that Canadians (and
especially Quebeckers) hold dear, and might serve his
campaign
well if he is able to propose new and pragmatic initiatives
to move Canada forward on this issue. Given the fact
that Kennedy played kingmaker, Kennedy's strong interest on
social issues will likely factor into the Liberal
program, although the role that Kennedy will play within a
Dion-led Liberal Party has yet to be determined.


3. (C/NF) On Canada's Afghan deployment, Dion will continue
to call for an "honorable way out." He will target Harper's
decision to extend Canada's mission there until 2009 without
adequate Parliamentary debate. The
Liberals will no doubt be tempted to transform the next
federal election, expected for the spring, into
referendum on Afghanistan. In addition, Dion will at least
to some extent follow in the footsteps of his
predecessors and target the Conservative policies as being
too close to those of the U.S. "Today we face a very
right-wing Government, much more like the current US
Republican Party than the old Tories, the former Progressive
Conservative Party of Canada," Mr. Dion stated during his
speech Friday evening. "Canada has a Prime Minister who
thinks that the United States is not only our ally, but also
our model. A Prime Minister who would have
immersed us in the Iraq nightmare. A Prime Minister who,
last Spring, blackmailed Parliament with the threat of an
election, in order to impose on Canada, blindly, two more
years in Afghanistan with no clear mandate. A Prime
Minister who is mirroring the style of his hero to the point
that President Bush should be getting royalties from
Mr. Harper's speeches."

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Two Salient Issues: the Environment and The Unity Question
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4. (C/NF) Bernard Landry, former head of the separatist
Parti Quebecois, endorsed Dion's victory as "the first step
towards sovereignty." This position might seem bizarre given
Dion's hard-line stance against constitutional recognition of
Quebec's "nation" status, or more powers that such a status
might entail. But Landry and other Parti Quebecois and Bloc
Quebecois leaders have stated their views that Dion's
position at the head of the Liberal camp is their chance to
generate a groundswell in favor of sovereignty among
Quebeckers who have trouble accepting Dion's pro-federalist
stance.


5. (C/NF) Minister of Public Works Michael Fortier stated
over the weekend that Dion was elected primarily by delegates
from outside his home province, and that most Quebec
delegates voted in favor of Ignatieff. The perception that
Dion lacks a strong base of popular and Quebec Liberal MP
support in his own province (due to his hard-line
stance on Federal-Provincial relations) is being widely
debated in the media and by delegates. Some see his stance
on the environment as carrying more political cache among
voters, especially among young voters, than the unity
question. However, a pre-convention Canadian Press poll
showed that Stephane Dion was as popular in Quebec as Bob
Rae or Michael Ignatieff. In any case, however, he will
attract the support of committed federalists in the
province, so predictions of an electoral disaster there seem
to be overdrawn.

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The Dion Image: A "brain on legs" or a political "Indiana
Jones"?
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6. (C/NF) Dion has a reputation for being rigid in his
beliefs and for having a difficult time forging compromises
with those who have different ideological leanings. His
heavily-accented, labored English does not always translate
well outside of Quebec. But he is also viewed as a sharp,
strategic thinker with courage to speak his mind and the
conviction and will to pursue his agenda. Many political
analysts wondered whether he would be able to overcome his
image as a "brain on legs" during his December 1 speech to
convention delegates. Although some termed his convention
speech as lackluster, due to his unchanging facial expression
and the fact that he was unable to finish the final 20
percent of his speech, continuing to speak as his microphone
faded and the music volume increased, others respected
his passion and determination as the sign of a political
fighter: "Not since Indiana Jones has there been a
university professor as tough, determined, and resourceful as
Stephane Dion," wrote Don MacPherson of the Montreal Gazette.
Others too have warned not to underestimate Dion, who has
also been described as "the Francophone Harper." Dion's
image challenge is different outside of Quebec. He is not as
known, and while his stance on national unity meshes well
with the opinion in ROC, Dion risks falling victim to being
the third Quebecker in a row as the Liberal candidate.

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Delegates vote to continue convention formula, avoid debate
on policy
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7. (SBU) During the convention's plenary session, three
"priority" resolutions on international affairs were adopted
without any debate: 1) A resolution urging the Government of
Canada to explore avenues to create an international
convention regulating the global trade in small arms and
light weapons; 2) A resolution urging the Canadian
Government to respect water as a global good and basic human
necessity which is ensured through public ownership and not
as a marketable commodity controlled only by supply and
demand; and 3) A resolution on the rights of indigenous
people and Arctic sovereignty, which advocates the
"development of a comprehensive Arctic sovereignty strategy
that addresses issues such as trade, Arctic water pollution,
regulations for shipping traffic, and aeronautics
regulation."


8. (SBU) The International Affairs policy workshop also saw
the adoption of a resolution to establish a Secretary of
State for Canada-U.S. relations under the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, a resolution on "northern sovereignty" stating that
the Canadian government should require all foreign ships to

MONTREAL 00001205 003 OF 004


register in advance of "plying northern Canadian waters,
including the Northwest Passage," and another on Canada's
mission in Afghanistan that would urge the Canadian
government to have a "full and open debate" in Parliament on
the current goals and objectives of the mission with the aim
of clearly defining the mission's goals and objectives for
the Canadian people, "and using the success, or lack thereof,
of meeting these objectives as the principal basis for
determining how long, or whether, Canada maintains a military
presence in Afghanistan." Of the seventeen resolutions
introduced in the policy workshop, all but one was adopted,
the exception being a resolution on Canada's role in
peacekeeping, conflict resolution, and governance building,
as some delegates expressed opposition to the mention of
"military" methods (alongside "non-military"
methods of peacekeeping).


9. (SBU) If the environment was a unifying theme, then the
question of national unity was the divisive one that the
Liberals intentionally avoided. In contrast to the virtual
absence of debate among Liberal convention delegates over
policy issues during plenary sessions, efforts to do away
with future leadership conventions by changing the party's
method of electing its leader to "one member, one vote" on
November 30 raised significant controversy and passionate
arguments from both sides of the debate. Some policy issues
gained prominence outside of plenary sessions, such as during
a speech to youth delegates to the convention, where Michael
Ignatieff seemed to soften his support for
Canada's mission in Afghanistan, by stating that he saw no
reason to extend Canadian troops' presence in the country
after 2009. The real policy debates occurred among the
leadership candidates themselves, during their December 1st
speeches.

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Convention organizers strive for the appearance of unity, but
the "Nation" question dogs leadership candidates
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10. (SBU) A motion to have the Liberal party recognize
Quebec as a Nation (following the adoption of a similar
resolution at the Federal level on November 27--see reftel)
threatened to introduce deep divisions into the
leadership convention. The motion followed from September
2006 campaign statements by Ignatieff about Quebec's language
and culture constituting a "nation" within Canada. The
Quebec wing of the Liberal party issued a
statement November 27 withdrawing its planned resolution,
saying the federal motion, though it differs slightly,
delivers what the Liberal motion had sought. Political
analysts and media said the tactic was to avoid an open
debate during the convention, which would have shown the
party as divided, and would have isolated the Liberal
party as the only federal party that rejected the motion.
Some political analysts have blamed Ignatieff's
introduction of the formerly dormant, ever-divisive "Quebec
nation" question, into the political discourse of the
leadership race as one of the reasons for his failure to win
the votes necessary to carry the election.


11. (C/NF) Dion's reputation as a hard-line Federalist and
as the author of the Clarity Act (setting out a
strict set of guidelines to be used in future referendums on
Quebec Sovereignty) has made him unpopular among
some Quebec nationalists. Dion might opt to soften his
position on this question somewhat in order to win more
approval in Quebec, but such a change of ideology would
require a dramatic departure from the vision of a united
Canada he has been promoting throughout his political life.
He did, however, vote for the motion in the House of Commons
that recognized the Quebecois as a nation within a unified
Canada.

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Comment
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12. (C/NF) Much of the press coverage regarding Dion has been
positive, and a national poll taken in the afterglow
of his election not surprisingly gave him a big bounce and
pushed him in front of Harper, 37 to 31 percent. He has
critics however, and within minutes of his victory, they came
out of the woodwork, including from members of his
own party. They took him to task for his faltering English,
lack of charisma, absence of political acumen, and suspected
inability to bring together an effective coalition. But
those who have underestimated Stephane Dion in
the past have done so at their own expense. The media
commentary unanimously claimed the Liberals emerged with the

MONTREAL 00001205 004 OF 004


damage repaired from decades of feuding between Chretien and
Martin camps, and the sponsorship scandal. Dion has mobilized
the party's youth and taken the first steps towards gathering
a strong base of support from his former opponents in the
leadership race, hosting a lunch meeting December 2 with each
of the former contenders to discuss strategies for moving
forward. Whether the Liberals will be able to use the party's
biennial convention and
leadership race to pull themselves together and rally behind
their new leader, who has pledged to reinvigorate the party,
remains to be seen. Pundits agree that Dion is
well-positioned on the two most important issues coming out
of the Liberal convention: the environment and national
unity, much of his success will depend on Dion's ability
to reinvent his image, renew his relations with Quebec
federal liberals, and generate support for a unified Liberal
program - promoting environmental issues without slowing down
the economic prosperity. Much will also depend on whether
Harper re-takes the initiative and delivers on his campaign
promises. Timing of the next elections, which
most predict will be this spring, will give Dion a chance to
demonstrate whether or not he was the right choice.
MARSHALL