Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons

BTC: Stephane Dion vows imminent election

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, June 5, 2008 6:23pm - 0 Comments

Apparently.

Following up on her story that some Liberals are agitating for a summer election, the Star’s Susan Delacourt put the matter to the Liberal leader in his post-QP scrum today. Here’s how the official transcript recorded the exchange.

(Before you get excited, Susan assures, via email, that this isn’t how she heard it.)

Reporter: Mr. Dion, what are you telling Liberals who want you to bring down the government tonight or next week?

Dion: Well I’m reluctant to be the one that will bring these elections in mid July, the only sunny month we have in this country. But I think we have been right to give Canadians more opportunities to see what kind of government we have, and they understand more and more of that and it’s not the government that we want more and more because Canadians want to build a united country where people are working together and the Prime Minister is, is bringing everybody apart. He’s doing that on every file.

Reporter: But if it’s that bad, why don’t you bring the government down now?

Dion: We’ll do that.

Tags: Stéphane Dion

More by Aaron Wherry

Wayne

I wish – as I am a dyed in the wool Tory! This would make my summer if he did and I would have a lot more respect for him.
http://mrsinistergreg.blogspot.com Greg

It all depends on what the meaning of “now” is. By the time you define it, “now” has become “then”. And, as we all know, Mr. Dion always looks to the future, to the undiscovered “nows”. Don’t try to freeze him in the paradox of a constantly moving and unattainable present moment. His mind just is too finely tuned to be distracted by the impermanence of your paradigm.
Chris B

Why do they think we care about when the election is? Hold it, don’t hold it, I will take a break from my summer revelry to go and vote.
Anon

Dion translates from English to French. “On va le faire” translates to “we’ll do that”. The question posed by Susan, or at least the “now” part, may not have been heard or interpreted correctly. The para before where he sets out why “July” is bad is the defining para.
Sophie

That’s what I was thinking, Anon. When someone who is fluent in two languages but who is not quite bilingual listens to someone speak in a different language, they translate back and forth inside their heads. I suspect that because ‘now’ or ‘soon’ was not included in his answer, he didn’t hear Susan or he mistakenly translated her question.