I’ve claimed lately that Stéphane Dion may have blown it, surrendering the hopes of many Canadians to keep the Conservatives to a moderated term steering the ship of state. His mistake was to support the extension of our mission in Afghanistan to appease the hawks in his party, especially John Manley and Michael Ignatieff, rather than act on the then majority opinion of Canadians. His numbers have fallen subsequently, in Quebec and elsewhere.

This mistake has the Ignatieff supporters smirking with glee. They need a quick demise to Dion’s leadership while Ignatieff has his base motivated, especially before those Chrétien folks who back Bob Rae have a chance to mobilize within caucus.

To make matters much worse for Dion and his party, the Conservatives have intimated that were they to be elected to a majority government, they would open the constitution to finally give Quebec what it wants; a special constitutional status and much greater control over spending power.

The Conservative communications strategy is to gesture to Quebec a commitment to reopen the constitution to favour them and then partly retract it. This leaves the message to resonate quietly in Québec while not upsetting the folks the Conservatives serve in the West and Ontario.

This strategy plays to Ignatieff’s advantage as he too is keen on recognizing Quebec’s special status in the constitution. If he is able to find a way for Dion to step aside, his common ground with the Conservatives on the Québec Question will be what he’ll sell as he convinces Liberals that he’s the guy for the job.

With Denis Codère lining up to replace Ignatieff after Iggy’s turn with the crown, it appears the anti-Chrétien, pro-Paul Martin forces will have recovered their grasp of the party. My, what a wicked web they weave!

Dion caught on the horns

Dion, of course, is a Trudeauite on the question of Québec’s place in Canada; he’s a reasonably honest, deeply committed Liberal with a strong sense of the betterment of Canada through public policy, but is losing his connection to the people and his grasp on his party faster than the snow is melting. Qu'est-ce qu'on va faire?

One option for Dion is to hang up his skates early, resign the party leadership, call a leadership convention for early fall and let the new leader take the team to polls soon thereafter. Curiously, as unlikely such self-sacrifice is in politics these days, Dion may well be the sort of guy who might give himself up this way.

However, this isn’t much of an answer for the Liberals or for the country, at least for the 65 per cent of Canadians who really don’t wish to see a Conservative majority. The problem is such a contest would be a battle to the political death of the two current aspirants, Iggy and Rae, one supported largely by the old Martin faction and the other by the old Chrétien faction.

Not to mention the cost of another leadership contest for a party that’s relatively short of funds, nor a country that’s tired of the warring egos.

The only game in town

So it appears the best bet for Stéphane remains to maintain the course, to continue to have his team hammer away at Conservatives, wait until they make an electorally expensive blunder and then pounce, using environmentalism as the ticket to 24 Sussex Drive.

Dion will need to win the federalist seats in Montreal, use the hint that Conservatives wish to make further concessions to Quebec to build Liberal support in Ontario and out West, and hope Greens and New Democrats vote strategically.

In the meantime, Dion will need to tell Iggy that if he or any folks even tangentially associated with him move, even surreptitiously, to force the issue, he will go to Rae. And he will publicly blame Iggy’s Machiavellian passion for the harm that a leadership war will do to the party.