Dion is a Liability: the Liberals must have new Leader come Jan 27th

Politically, Dion is the most inept leader in the history of the Liberal party. He is a liability. In English, he is terrible in an attack and even worse in defense. If Harper is successful in proroguing parliament, the Liberals should be looking to replace him for that reason alone. However there is more to it than just that. Having a lame duck leader for 6 plus months was always a terrible idea. Have a lame duck Prime Minister would be 100 times worse. I almost do not care how the Liberals go about choosing their next leader at this point. The important thing is that Dion is gone come January 27th.

Besides dumping Dion and actually mounting a coherent defense against the Conservative onslaught, the Liberals need to address the elephant in the living room. They can pretend that Harper’s threat to cut public funding for political parties was not what precipitated all of this, but no one is buying it. Someone at some level has to address this issue. It should be a relatively easy case to make. After all, one can argue all one likes about the merits of public funding. I happen to think it justified. However, the fact of the matter is that without public funding this time around several parties would be facing bankruptcy. In other words, what Harper said amounted to a threat to legislate various parties out of existence.