Dion has said that his involvement as “an activist for the separatist cause” ended during a five-hour, rum-and-Coke fuelled discussion with a federalist household while he was going door-to-door for the PQ, but he did not openly commit to federalism until much later. At the time of the 1980 referendum, his sentiments were neutral. In his own words, the ‘no’ victory left him “neither moved nor outraged. To tell the truth, I felt no particular feeling.” (Moi, je ne me sentais ni ému ni révolté. À vrai dire, je n’éprouvais aucun sentiment particulier.)

Yes, that’s a real Canadian speaking. No wonder he won’t give up his French citizenship. If Stephen Harper had dual US-Canadian citizenship, the media would crucify him. Double standard, indeed.

I wouldn’t normally get drawn into troll wars, but aren’t you are the king of Canadian political internet trolls? I remember seeing you comment on bigcitylib’s site that Libloggers should join you in launching a troll attack on the Maclean’s blogs. You should really take your own advice and get a new hobby.

I guess I’m wondering why you’d chose to be the lickspittle of a failure like Dion?

As far as the fairness of the media in airing this: you lot have hidden enough liberal gaffes. If this was Harper, it would lead every 14 milliseconds.

In fact, Palin=Dion. Media’s coverage is what is not equal (and I refer to the CDN media’s coverage.)

Low point in journalist? Try rare breaze. It won’t waft away the stink but it’s a start.

Nevertheless, this interview is important not because of supposed language problems but because it demonstrably shows that Dion has nothing except invective as it relates to the economy.

Seriously where are Dion’s handlers? Did they not prepare him to answer this very direct question about what he’d do if he was Prime Minister? Heck, John Doe on the street can give you a canned answer on things near and dear to him.

Seriously, g-l-o-b-a-l w-a-r-m-i-n-g…gees!

Yes we are pollution good ole Terra Ferma but CHANGE the weather? Really?
Humans think themselves quite important eh?

Tell me this… should we suddenly discover that the ice age is coming in 5 years, could we stop it with excess gas emissions?
…yeah.

Cut off the comments eh?

Sninkers.
No wonder I refuse to renew my subscription.

Any one who doesn’t want a majority for Canada instead of another few years of minority, and yet another early election…blah blah blah well then vote for the one who didn’t even bother to learn English, at least Harper’s French is 10 times better than Dion’s English.

Lets let the other side have a chance, besides we need this country to be strong, hasn’t been and the kids are lost…

unlike your lily-white self, huh ti-guy?

*

I want to be proud of my Prime Minister. I want somebody who understands the question the first time. Someone who won’t embarass the entire country on the world stage. Not an intellectual lighweight. Maybe the interviewer should have spoken S-L-O-W-E-R!

These times call for leadership and intelligence, not a buffoon!

I have no issue with a legitimate political zinger and I would say that is what the sweater jokes are.

Do Nothing Dion – is not just rhetoric it is fact 43 times it is factually accurate…

“The entire journalistic class is an utter disgrace this election for refusing to cover Canada’s climate change position,…”

Actually, the global warming “crisis” (it stopped nine years ago) was a media creation. Now they are bored and tired of it and have more interesting rabbits to hunt. Even CBCSuzuki has been able to do three consecutive newscasts (I’ve been keeping track) without bringing up the AGW shibboleth in some weird context.

If you think that the pusuit of Weaver’s and Hansen’s computerized moonbeams is actually more important than the prospect of a worldwide economic depression that would destroy the lives of hundreds of millions, you’re not merely out of touch with reality, you are a heartless ideologue.

I agree that the spirit of the election is pretty dismal but I think your claim to the moral high ground is overstated…

Layton has had bouts of name calling and pls explain to me how the ‘sweater jokes’ are substantive. Heck even your post contains the same kinda rhetoric e.g., “Do-nothing Dion said they wouldn’t stand up for hard pressed Canadian families… frankly BS. You might not like the things he is proposing but a dramatic remaking of the tax systems is not ‘nothing’.

but you are right that we def need some veterans of parliament back… seeing B.Blakie go right now is doubly depressing.

The entire journalistic class is an utter disgrace this election for refusing to cover Canada’s climate change position, despite the fact that the next government will negotiate the only climate treaty the world has left to avoid a truly horrible situation.

At the last climate change conference, our well educated Prime Minister decided to utterly ignore all of Canada’s expert scientists. And I mean that he did not even ask for advice only to later ignore it. By the way, this is par for the course for Mr. Harper government, in all areas of Canada’s science policy — something the media is also incapable of informing the public of.

Why don’t you try to redeem yourselves the next few days Paul Wells. And pass this message along to your friends.

http://www.cop15.dk/en

Do you remember the Brain drain that occurred in after Mulroney, the beginning Chretien years, and when Harris came to power in Ontario? Do you know how hard it is has been to build up Canada’s reputation and expertise in Science in the intervening years of good government, that actually cared about forming policy based on the best possible advice? Do you know how fragile the situation is now?

And gee, Scott, what’s your traffic like?

Not only did Dion understand the question he realized that standard Liberal boilerplate didn’t provide him an answer.

BC and Ontario have suffered too much from past NDP reigns of error. No problem though, Taliban Jack’s popularity will never be more than 20%. The more he panders, the more he reminds me of a pirate

Today we found out that the Liberal/Conservative Afghan war is not only unwinnable (that was yesterday’s headline) but it is massively over the estimate costs and we can’t even be sure if $18 Billion is the ceiling on this misadventure.

Today Canadians were left wondering why their banks didn’t pass on to the the full interest rate cut given them by the Central bank and laissez faire Harper and Do-nothing Dion said they wouldn’t stand up for hard pressed Canadian families.

Given the global economic crisis engulfing the world is this really what Canadians want us to be talking about for the next five days?

I don’t think so and I know that isn’t what Jack Layton thinks. I watched that bizarre panel on Duffy and Joe Comartin brought it right back to the issues of the day. Than Brad Lavigne, someone I have seen deliver great political zingers, he stayed focused on the important issues and he stayed focused on Harper just as his leader has done.

I am a partisan New Dem and I have never been prouder of my party. Leave the petty school yard antics to the other parties and keep doing what you are doing, talking about what is really on the minds of Canadians.

Would you shut, you troll? You’ve trolled Liberal blogs for two years now and one would think a sane person would have found something better to do by now.

Face it, your Emperor has no clothes

If that question were asked to anybody on the street, there would be an answer. Most of them, of course, would be stupid answers, but there would be an answer.

Dion? He was clueless! That’s leadership? He wants to be the boss? And he had no opinion?

Careful of the whooshing sound, Stephie……

I don’t understand why the journalist didn’t rephrase the question to make it clear to Dion, especially since he is francophone and has a hearing problem.

People who are trying to make something of this are just looking for something negative they can say about Dion. Posting the clip shows clear bias on the part of the media. Most people will be able to see this for what it is. Those who can’t are free to make their decision based on nonsense.

It’s an odd question. For one, it’s a hypothetical. For another, it follows this, “If you were Prime Minister now.”
________________________________________________

I know all you grammatically perfect Liberals have trouble with the common tongue but almost all of us mouth-breathing rednecks understood the question quite well. In not so polite English it would go something like:

So what would YOU have done, smartypants?

But Dion couldn’t answer it. Was it because he didn’t understand? But he said he did understand in try #2. Was it his hearing? But we were told his hearing is bad in crowds and parties where the background buzz is too much. Where was the crowd here? Or was it just that Mr. Dion finds it easy to criticize, score the points, but when asked a simple question, “what would you have done?” he has nothing. He has nothing now except consult the wise men and the oracles, maybe divine the guts of sheep or two and he’ll get back to us 30 days AFTER we elect him. THAT is the story and hopefully that is what will get reported, not the self-serving Liberal spin about poor Dion, Chretien’s face, and the evil fat man.

SH is unfit to govern.

“Stephane Dion has been accusing the Prime Minister of doing nothing about the crisis in the market. When he is asked a simple question: what would you do about the crisis if you were the Prime Minister?”

Only, that’s not the question. The question was, “what _would_ _you_ _have_ done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper has not done?”

It’s an odd question. For one, it’s a hypothetical. For another, it follows this, “If you were Prime Minister now.”

The setup is that Dion is the Prime Minister now, but the question is what would he have done in the past? What is this scenario? Is Dion being asked what he would have done up until now, if he had been elected in the 2006 election (in which, of course, he wasn’t running for PM)?

Dion asks for clarification: “If [I] would have been the Prime Minister two and a half years ago?”

The response: “If you were the Prime Minister right now.”

After a slight pause, Dion begins to answer, as the interviewer adds, “And had been for the past two years?” trailing off towards the end.

I don’t know if the interviewer was intending to be this confusing, but he was.

I feel like I’ve lost my innocence or something.

Two things will happen this month that will make me happy: (i) Stephane Dion will vanish into obscurity; and (ii) my 52-issue subscription to the LPC newsletter will expire. (Sorry Coyne, I did it all for you.)

Thus Spake the Globe and Mail (about Dion):

“But a leader he is not.”

But I also find myself thinking, if this were a Harper flub, you probably wouldn’t be asking that question…

How does he respond. He starts with his rambling I’ll have a plan in 90 days or so. Decides the answer is lame and so asks for another take. Then asks a series of clarifications on what he knew was a pretty simple question. He had no answer.

Dion the demagogue was outed. And it wasn’t a pretty sight. Dion’s media pals are not happy.