Aboriginal leaders are comparing Liberals to old style "Indian Agents" for nixing a local nomination process and instead decreeing Joan Beatty their candidate in the Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River by-election.
This schism, coming on top of the outrage of David Orchard supporters is once again demonstrating how Dion's weak leadership can't keep the party together.
And it's not like they weren't warned about this.
This latest "Dion Decree" seems like a déjà vu of the Outremont by-election (some bloggers agree) where Dion ignored the wishes of others and pressed ahead with his own appointed candidate.
And even before that, the key lesson from the Liberals' long forgotten renewal process following their 2006 defeat was that after 13 years in power and kissing-up to big money, party members felt isolated. Venerable partisan Tom Axworthy wrote a lengthy report (which has tellingly vanished from their website) urging the party to strike a new relationship to make activists and volunteers feel appreciated.
For a professor, Dion has seems to have the toughest time learning. As a result, the Liberal Party is behaving no different than it did when Canadians rejected it two years ago for its scandal, arrogance and broken promises.
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Not to mention that this is still a big loss for the NDP Party.
Lets check the score board shall we:
The Sask NDP looses a newly elected MLA who now has to explain her Emersonian loyalties.
The federal Liberal Party gets to (a) have another public/private scrap about the sensibilities of their new leader; (b) show how little it's changed since 2006; (c) have a public scrap with David Orchard and his supporters; and (d) for an added bonus gets to be compared to "Indian agents" by Aboriginal people in a riding they bearly won 24 months ago.
If indeed the Beatty recruitment is a "win" for the Liberals, it is certainly a phyrric one.
It should be noted she is not "newly elected". Beatty was re-elected...and by the largest margin in the province...so, yes, it's a loss for Calvert.
Having said that, we would have all preferred a contested nomination.
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