JWhiting.com

Like I said in an earlier post, I went out on Monday night to see Jeanne play some songs with her dad at the Wheel Club’s Hillbilly Night.

A friend of Jeanne’s from Toronto, Richard Ferren, is staying with us and he came along sporting a Stephane Dion pin that he picked up at the Liberal convention. (Richard is a card-carrying Liberal who was supporting Dion from the very beginning.)

When we got to the Wheel Club, Richard’s pin caught the eye of a fiery middle-aged woman who, it turns out, works in Stepane Dion’s office, which until recently was a very intimate affair (4 or 5 people).

This politically passionate woman sat down at our table and Richard and I proceeded to ask her questions for the rest of the night. (I was so engrossed in the conversation, Jeanne was worried that I’d miss her set.)

So what did the Liberal lady say? Well, a lot. And all of it positive. And why am I excited about it? Because she was so genuine. A “low” level staffer who was inspired and gave us a privileged glimpse behind-the-scenes of someone who is suddenly one of Canada’s most powerful political leaders.

So, again, what did she say?

First of all, some stuff that everyone already knows…

She said that Dion is a smart hard worker with a lot of ideas who even during a hectic leadership campaign, took time out to attend the many events that were taking place in his riding. He treats the people around him with fairness and respect. He believes in what he’s doing. He has a vision for Canada.

There was a good lesson about democracy here. Dion becoming leader hinged on a first round 2 vote lead he had over his buddy Gerard Kennedy (they have a mutual admiration society going — similar ideas and attitudes about politics). If it had gone the other way, Dion would have thrown his support to Kennedy instead of the other way around.

I asked my new insider friend if she thought that Dion could have delivered most of his delegates to Kennedy as effectively as Kennedy had done for Dion and after a reflective pause, she said she didn’t think so, saying that many in Dion’s camp would have been too afraid that Kennedy couldn’t pull off the win against Michael Ignatieff. Many Dion delegates would have turned to Bob Rae, giving him the win.

So, but for 2 votes, we have Dion instead of Rae. Every vote counts people.

What else, what else…? She said that the separatists are furious with Stephan Dion because the Clarity Act has tied their hands so effectively. They can no longer count on shoving through a vague bullshit-clouded referendum question.

What’s the biggest “secret” that I learned?

Apparently, Stephan Dion is against Canada’s current role in Afghanistan, feeling that Harper changed a northern peacekeeping mission into a more active fighting role in the south because that’s what George Bush wanted. She said, however, that Dion’s not going to be vocal about this, choosing as we’ve already seen, to focus on the gay marriage debate and the government’s environmental “plan”.

This woman convinced me to believe in Dion. I now think that he’s our best hope to boot the Conservatives out. And, because he wasn’t supported by the party’s old guard elite, I like him even more. Out with the old, in with the new.

Decide for yourself. Watch one of Dion’s first interviews here (the interview starts at 7:20 — damn you CTV for making your videos so hard to link to).

Like this Canadian political blogger stated so well about the CTV interview above:

Mr. Dion was very forthright in providing intelligible and thoughtful responses to questions about same sex marriage, Afghanistan, Maher Arar, campaign financing and the environment. There was no ducking and dodging or partisan attacks — just answers. Mr. Dion even admitted he didn’t have an answer to the income trust flip flop and that he would confer with the experts in his caucus on the issue. Count me very impressed.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 7th, 2006 at 11:56 am and is filed under Personal, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.