Dion elected leader of federal Liberals

BY HEIDI ULRICHSEN

Local Liberals are rallying behind their new leader, Stephane Dion, after he jumped from third to first place at the party's leadership convention in Montreal Saturday.

Dion received 2,521 votes on the fourth and final ballot ahead of Michael Ignatieff, who received 2,084 votes.

The Saint-Laurent-Cartierville MP was in third place after the first and second ballots behind Ignatieff and Bob Rae, but surged to the lead when he went into the third ballot with the support of fellow candidates Gerard Kennedy and Martha Hall Findlay.

When Rae was dropped off the fourth ballot, the candidate refused to publicly support either Ignatieff or Dion, saying he didn't want to influence how his supporters voted.

Serge Treherne, the president of the federal Liberal riding association in Nickel Belt, went into the convention supporting second-tier candidate Ken Dryden.

Dryden came in fifth place out of the eight candidates on the first ballot, and on the second ballot he came in last place and was eliminated.

“Initially on the first ballot I voted for Dryden, but after that I voted for Mr. Dion,” said Treherne, speaking from Montreal on his cell phone Sunday.

“Mr. Dion really has a progressive vision for the party and the country. The pillars of his platform are extremely impressive and just what the country needs. I think he'll make an effective leader and I have no doubt that he'll beat Stephen Harper in the next election.”

Treherne says he decided on Dion as his second choice after the candidate visited Greater Sudbury. He thinks a lot of other people from this area also voted for Dion after their favourite candidates dropped out of the race.

Dion, 51,  was a professor of public administration at the University of Montreal before he was elected in a by-election to the House of Commons in 1996.

He was re-elected in 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2006. As the minister of intergovernmental affairs, he led the fight against Quebec separatism.

During a visit to Greater Sudbury in October, Dion told local party supporters some of his key areas of concern are protecting the environment, promoting unity in the country and eliminating the standard-of-living gap between native people and the general population by 2010.

Dion will be able to unite federal Liberals, says Treherne. The party has been fractured in recent years because of in-fighting and the sponsorship scandal.

“He's a unifier,” he says. “The mood on stage after he was declared the winner was very positive. Everybody was pretty much unified behind him.”

Ignatieff gave an “extraordinary” speech after the vote, graciously saying Dion will have his support in the future, Treherne says.

Jim Lanzo, the president of the Sudbury federal Liberal riding association, supported Ignatieff throughout the convention.

“Whenever you're supporting a candidate, it's always a little disappointing if your candidate doesn't win. However, we're all Liberals, and the renewal of the party is of utmost importance to us. We're all behind our new leader, and we're all ready to move onwards after this.”

There was “such a talented slate of candidates” running for the Liberal leadership that it was anybody's race to win, said Lanzo, speaking on his cell phone Sunday in a van full of Liberals heading back to Northern Ontario.

“Mr. Dion won because he ran an excellent campaign, and because the grassroots of the party wanted him to be there.”

Timmins resident Paul Latondress, a top party official who represents Northern Ontario among federal Liberals, was travelling home in the same vehicle as Lanzo.

Latondress supported Dion in the first ballot, but switched to Kennedy on the second ballot to thank the candidate for showing up at a Timmins fundraiser on short notice. When Kennedy dropped out of the race, he voted for Dion again.

“I thought Dion was the man who has the most experience of the whole bunch and the least luggage with him. I think he can unify the whole party, win the next election and be the next prime minister of Canada.”