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Profile: Canadian Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion
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by Rob Walker | October 10, 2008 at 11:36 am
358 views | 4 Recommendations | 1 comment
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The Liberal party website has an in-depth biography of Stephane Dion's political history. Born in 1955, he became the leader of the Liberal party in 2006 and is the main opposition leader for the impending national election.
A former academic, Dion served as cabinet minister under Prime Ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin for years until he became leader of the party.
First elected in a 1996 by-election, Stéphane Dion was re-elected in 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2006 in the riding of Saint-Laurent – Cartierville.Before entering the race to become Liberal leader, Mr. Dion served as Foreign Affairs Critic in Interim Leader Bill Graham’s shadow cabinet.
In July 2004, under former Prime Minister Paul Martin, Mr. Dion was appointed Environment Minister. In that position, he helped prepare Canada for the challenges of a sustainable economy and played a key role in developing the greenest budget since Confederation.
Wikipedia, as usual, has a good bio of his life, including his academic career and early political career:
He studied political science at Université Laval in the department co-founded by his father.[4], and this was also where he met his future wife, Janine Krieber, a fellow-student in the same program. He obtained BA and MA degrees in 1977 and 1979 respectively (his master's thesis presented an analysis of the evolution of Parti Québécois electoral strategies[5]) after which he and Janine departed together for France.
Here is the Liberal party platform for the 2008 election: Liberal platform:
"Richer, Fairer, Greener," the Liberal Party of Canada's fully-costed, fiscally-responsible platform, lays out a progressive, inclusive vision to make Canada a stronger country for the next generation.
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Barry Artiste
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 16:58 on October 10th, 2008
Rob Walker, I like this story. It's good stuff. From what I've seen taking place over the last 3 days, it appears that the NDP are being ingnored by the Media, and the main spotlight is now on Harper and Dion, and who Canadians will choose to be the next Prime Minister. Dion looked pretty scared during a recent interview (I think it was yesterday) when he was asked by the reporter what would be the first thing he would do if he were Prime Minister NOW? He looked like a schoolboy trying to get out of a sticky question he wasn't prepared to answer!
On the other hand, I really thought it was way too 'opportunistic' for Harper to go on the attack so quickly after that blunder -- because he's not perfect by any means. I wish they would get away from the leader's personalities and get back to what's really important!