There is nothing funnier than
an academic trying to imitate a street-smart politician, or, a
street-smart politician trying to imitate an academic. Jean Chrétien was
street smart. Stéphane Dion is, they say, an academic. Chrétien
succeeded because he behaved according to his personality. Dion, the
academic, is trying to imitate Chrétien and that’s pathetic.
Being a
street-smart politician is not something you can learn in university.
You need to be intelligent, courageous and have some strong political
instincts. Chrétien had all three.
Dion is
courageous, but he definitely has no political instincts and his last
decision to play footsie with the Green Party makes me wonder about his
political intelligence.
It seems like
his electoral program is ready. All he has to do is look at what Prime
Minister Stephen Harper says or does and preach the opposite.
Take his
meeting with Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams. Dion had
no political interest or a political solution to the dispute between
Williams and the federal government. Dion is one of the former Liberal
Cabinet ministers who didn’t even recognize the existence of the “fiscal
gap” with the provinces. He was asking for clarity, commitments and
trust, but it is hard to be trusted when there are no commitments.
Williams is
basically asking for more money from Ottawa. That money won’t be coming
from Harper’s pockets but will come mainly from the Ontario taxpayers.
At the press conference with Williams, was a childish initiative to
capitalize on the dispute between Williams and Ottawa and, in one
stroke, Dion upset Liberals in Ontario, and the Liberals in Newfoundland
and Labrador who will pretty soon be in the polls against Williams,
gaining no support whatsoever from any other political organization run
by a leader with some political smarts.
Another
masterpiece of bad politics and hypocrisy, combined, was the request for
a vote on Canada’s role in Afghanistan, in particular, for a commitment
to withdraw our troops at the end of 2009.
Yet
Parliament already approved the request for the withdrawal. That’s when
the Liberal government sent our troops into Afghanistan. Yes, you might
argue that the Conservative government will not respect that commitment.
Fine, then what do you do? Amongst many uncertainties in politics, there
is only one event that nobody doubts: we are definitely going to have a
federal election before the end of 2009.
Pretend that
the vote last week would have been in favour of the Liberal motion and
after the next election, before 2009, Harper won a majority. Could
Liberal MP Denis Coderre explain what he would have done with his
motion? If Harper has the right to not respect the 2002 Liberalled vote,
why would he have been forced to respect the one presented by Coderre?
On the other hand, now that the motion has been defeated and, for the
sake of argument, let’s pretend the Liberals won a majority in the next
election, they can bring the troops home at any time.
This means
that the political activities of the Liberal Party hang on stunts and
gimmicks and have no impact whatsoever on reality.
If anything,
they are indirectly giving an advantage to the Taliban telling them
“hang on for another few months, then we will leave and you will do
whatever you want.” Telling the enemies the day you leave, is like
accepting defeat before the end of the conflict.
And this is
not do justice to the people of Afghanistan, to our troops and to the
young Canadians who have died believing in the government that sent them
there.
