Now that Dion has officially stepped down, it's time for the next CAPRU.
Don Macpherson: For those unaware of history, Trudeau lost the 1979 election, stepped down as official leader, but stayed as interim leader. Within a year there was an election and Trudeau won for the Liberals. Contrary to what Dion may think or the Conservatives may think, Dion is not Trudeau.
Neil Waugh: Now that Dion has officially stepped down, I'm just going to add insult to injury and repeat every provably false or misleading Conservative talking point about Dion and the Green Shift one last time. I'll miss you Dion, you made my job as a Conservative mouthpiece so easy.
Jeffrey Simpson: Second verse, same as the first.
Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff will surely contend again for the prize, if that is what you want to call the Liberal leadership these days. They did well last time. Mr. Ignatieff could probably have won the leadership if Mr. Rae had thrown him his support. But then lots of things could have happened last time. Either Mr. Rae or Mr. Ignatieff could have won except for crippling weaknesses and errors.
Mr. Ignatieff had not spent enough time in Canada. His support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq was toxic. Now, however, Mr. Ignatieff has recanted his Iraq views, paid his dues in the party, and can fairly say he was ahead of his time accepting Quebeckers as a "nation." Mr. Rae never really gave the party a set of ideas that defined his candidacy. He gave them rather the gift of himself, a gift with considerable talents and extensive liabilities, including his unhappy tenure as NDP premier of Ontario. Those years are fading in memory. He, too, has paid his dues, running and being elected as a Liberal, something he had not done when running for the leadership the first time.
Les Leyne: Regardless of how effective they are, carbon taxes are not popular. Dion's green shift seem to have derailed his campaign unilaterally, even though it was a revenue neutral plan. Campbell's (BC's premier) carbon tax will likely hurt him come the elections in May. Why? "The tax annoys people and the revenue neutrality confounds them."
Adam Radwanski:
A confluence of factors has helped turn our election races into schoolyard tussles. The anything-goes nature of online debate — on blogs and even on parties' official websites — has spilled over into mainstream discourse much the way talk radio infected it south of the border. The media's obsession with "war rooms" has left their occupants trying to outdo one another with gratuitous attacks. And the clutter of five parties competing in a 24-hour news cycle has left them making increasingly shrill noises in the hope of being heard.
Some parties are worse offenders than others. But Canadians are casting a plague on all their houses. Voter turnout was at a record low in this election, falling to 59 per cent. And anecdotal evidence suggests that most people simply tuned out all the noise until the campaign's final week.
Nigel Hannaford:
... those with deeper understanding appreciate that Canada is badly flawed by its imperialist, racist, God-fearing past, blah, blah, blah.
...
The unfortunate thing is today's judging of the actions of people who lived a hundred years ago by the standards of people alive today.
To be fair, would one not judge people by the standards of their day? For instance, let's say it turns out driving SUVs causes global warming, after all. How accurate, never mind fair, would it be if in 100 years time, a future generation wrote of SUV-drivers as though they were wilful criminals?
... do we condemn a policy of preparing aboriginal people for the world we had imposed on them which, by the standards of 120 years ago, stood out as progressive. Remember, by 1890, the residential schools were up and running. But, in the U.S., that was also the year of the Battle of Wounded Knee: Thus Canadian natives got teachers, the Sioux got the 7th Cavalry.
And so on. Bottom line: We need to be a little more forgiving of our forefathers, and give them credit for doing the best they could without our superior knowledge and morality.
Lawrence Martin believes that the Canadian Obama is not coming and progressives should stop waiting for him. Simply put, Canada is rapidly heading towards a Conservative future while the states become more progressive. However, I believe, unlike the 30s when this lat happened, there will be no great depression to jolt us back. [Ed Note: and most Canadians hope you are wrong Lawrence. Well, at least 62% of them do.]
Erik Rolfsen:
... on March 18, the day he made [the] now-famous "A More Perfect Union" speech in Philadelphia.
When I watched that speech, like so many Canadians I came away wishing we had a chance to vote for a guy like that. A leader who can really inspire comes around only once every 50 years or so in politics.
We haven't had one since Pierre Trudeau and Americans hadn't had once since before I was born. I couldn't believe they were considering NOT making this man president.
Andrew Coyne has an interesting wrap-up on the recent election. He believes that nobody won this election, least of all the Conservatives under their leader Stephen Harper.
This is an indictment, not just of the particular tactics of this campaign, but of the whole strategic vision of the party's "pragmatists." They have led the polls since they were elected, yet they have been chasing all the way — chasing the middle, chasing Quebec — only to see their quarries recede ever further from their grasp. All that tacking about, all their attempts to denude themselves of anything resembling an ideology, has not produced a more conservative public: it has never been more liberal. The effect of Tory efforts to woo Quebec nationalists has not been to bring Quebec into the Conservative fold, still less to make them more Canadian: it has only persuaded them to withdraw still further from national life, to consider Canada as little more than a ready source of cash and favours. Think of all that the Conservatives have thrown at Quebec. Billions of dollars in the name of the fictional "fiscal imbalance." The status of nation. A growing role in foreign affairs. And it all falls to pieces over a few paltry cuts in arts funding?