In Montreal, fellow federal Liberal delegates who were voting on the future of the Liberal Party of Canada chose their new leader, former Environment Minister Stephane Dion.
It was a bit of a surprise that Dion ended up winning over Michael Ignatieff, since Ignatieff was thought to be the front-runner in the race since when he announced he was running many months ago. Dion won with 2,521 (or 54% of the vote) versus Ignatieff with 2,084 (46% of the vote) in the 4th ballot. Where will the party go from here?
Will we see a new era in the Liberal Party? Where corruption is no longer an issue? Where Canada will be united from sea to sea to sea? Only time will tell. Since Dion is from Quebec, he will not be popular in Western Canada, since Westerners want an anglo-Canadian who can relate with their issues.
As said in a previous blog article I wrote, I met Dion at a meet & greet back in June. I found Dion to be very knowledgeable of the issues he addressed, and very open to ideas from regular Canadians, as well as wanting to see farmers have a bigger role in Canada as a whole. I believe that Dion may be one of the best leaders that the party may ever see, but who knows if this will be enough to have a Liberal voice in representation in Alberta in the next election. Either way, he is a much better choice than Bob Rae is, many "Liberals" are turned off with a former NDP Member of Parliament and Premier "changing his colours" by running as the leader of the federal Liberals, I know that in Ontario he is still not well liked.
Stephane Dion's campaign website
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