The party had relied on greasing the wheels of their machine in Quebec. Money flowed for party organizing. Not an election was won without a bit of the old baksheesh, the greasing of palms, the payola to ensure door to door campaigning.
They were a party in power, one that could promise favours and including cold hard cash. Without that financial base they had no organization in Quebec, no real base. And the lack of largess exposed the party for the specter it was, a thinly veiled ghost of its past success.
With Harper playing the nation card, this further isolated Dion the last of the Trudeau federalists.
The Liberals are no longer the party of Quebec, they can't afford it. And so the knives come out in Quebec, aimed at Dion, the anti-nationalist. But it is not nationalism that brings home the bacon, it is federal funding. And now the payola is coming from the Conservatives. And so Quebec will be wooed by a new prince. And she will dance with guy who brung her presents.
Dion and the Liberals came empty handed, lost, and left. And the Quebec wing of the party should look in the mirror if they want someone to blame. And Dion can shuffle his cabinet like a deck of cards but in Quebec they all come out as jokers.
Marc Garneau says he wasn't part of Dion's vision
Liberal director to be shuffled out in bid to mend party divisions
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Listening to Liberals complain about Harper 'buying off Quebec' is always good for a chuckle. 'Doesn't he realize buying off Quebec is a Liberal prerogative?!?'
ReplyDeleteNot only can they not afford Quebec anymore - they can't afford each other anymore. The one thing that has ever kept this ideology free party together is the sharing of the loot or the realistic prospect of soon sharing the loot. As it begins to sink in that the best they will be able to hope for, for quite possibly decades will be minority governments that will actually force them to govern and not just sit back and feast - the sounds of squabbling get louder and louder.
They are now entering a long period of internecine bloodletting that will make the Chretein/Martin battles look like a Kumbaya singalong.
And we have ring-side seats.