Sunday, December 03, 2006

And the Winner Is...

Last night, as I was driving back to North Bay. I was listening to one of the many hilariously ironic local radio stations. As I pulled off the highway, the news came on.

"Stephane Dion is the new leader of the Liberal Party, beating out Micheal Ignatieff in the final ballot"

I was simply amazed. In recent years, the political process has been very frustrating for me. With the recent election victories of George W. Bush and Stephen Harper, I was losing faith in decision making abilities of the masses. Two absolutely terrible choices to lead their respective countries into the 21st century were chosen and we are forced to watch the body count grow and the ozone layer thin as a result.

But with that simple bit of news real my spirits were lifted. Since he first tossed his hat into the ring I have been a huge supporter of Mr. Dion. He has a very progressive stance on the environment, he is bilingual, he stood up to Separatists when he helped draft the Clarity Act, and he had that whole underdog vibe going for him in this convention.

As the summer turned into fall and the Leadership Convention approached, I started to worry that Dion was going to be on the outs. My deepest fear was to have Ignatieff take the win. I was telling myself all week that if he was the new leader I was going Orange, and never looking back. Thankfully I was saved of this one. I had started to accept the possibility of voting for a Bob Rae lead federal Liberal Party, something that I never would have dreamed of back in early 1990's Ontario.

Now I have been a supporter of the Liberal Party for a while, not so much because of ideology, as that goes more towards the NDP, or possibly Green Party, but because they are the best vote against the Conservatives. However, in recent years with the Sponsorship Scandal and all of Martin's idiocies I became very disillusioned with them. Yet, now here I am amazed that they decided to do the right thing and support Dion.

I honestly and sincerely hope that this Conservative Minority comes to a close and we can vote Dion in as soon as possible. He may just end up being the best Prime Minister we have had in a long time.

So I would like to say thank you, to the Liberal Party. After years of riding your own coat tails, and robbing from the very people you swear to serve, you did the right thing and I for one appreciate it. I really hope that the rest of the country does too.

Until next time,

G

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

And who called it?

McNutt (on Thursday's blog entry):

"And I know that Stephane Dion is…well…I haven’t heard too much bad about him. So he’s going to win."

"I’m going to lay it on the line here and predict that it’s going to be Dion or Kennedy taking this thing. Iggy’s going to gain little from the dropout candidates, and Dion and Kennedy’s teams will unite together behind one or the other to take down the leaders. It’s going to be several ballots, though - excpect a squeaker.)"

Thank you, thank you!