Dion grabs leadership, Liberals go green

I spent most of the day watching and listening to the Liberal leadership convention. It was a great race and an excellent convention to watch, with Stephane Dion coming out on top on the fourth and final ballot.

Personally, I think he’s a bad choice. The party talked about renewal, but ended up sticking with a candidate who is very much a part of the past – he was a minister in both the Jean Chretien and Paul Martin governments.

Another knock against him is his wooden demeanour. After winning, he gave a weak and rather boring acceptance speech. Some analysts said many people left the hall and opted not to listen to his speech, while applause in the TV coverage sounded tepid at best. Not a good sign for a guy who wants to be prime minister.

To beat Steven Harper, I think the delegates should have gone with someone entirely new, either Gerard Kennedy or Michael Ignatieff. But Kennedy’s poor French, and Liberals’ distrust of an outsider, Igantieff, eventually gave Dion, the insider, the leadership.

His win was brilliant politicking – Kennedy came to him before the third ballot with his delegates when he could have stayed on – on a party level, but running and winning a federal election campaign when you are trying to sway the general public is a different story.

What I found most fastcinating about Dion is the fact he ran on a green platform. For the first time, a major party is willing to stake their election hopes on the environment, even when the economy in Canada’s richest province, oil-rich Alberta.

Dion, who I must admit gives a feisty interview, talked about how he will run the on sustainability and environmentalism in his post-convention interview with the CBC’s Don Newman. For Westerners this translates into harsh treatment of the energy and mining sectors, which are driving Alberta and British Columbia’s red hot economies.

Though global warming is a key issue – polls are saying it’s top-of-mind these days – I think it’s still an abstract and difficult issue to make a key component of a campaign, as there seems to be no cohesive solution to solving the issue. Signing the Kyoto Protocol and adhering to one path, but changing people’s consumption habits is much more important, and I don’t see this happening until North America faces a real environmental crisis.

It is difficult to convince people to cut back. Most people don’t want to downsize their life and drive a Smart car, so it will be interesting to see how the Liberals will do against a pro-business, pro-wealth party like the Conservatives.

Though I’m glad to see the Liberals beginning to champion the environment, I think with Dion at the helm they will utimately go down in defeat, possibly losing so badly that the Conservatives will grab a majority.

Goalie blues

My goaltending woes continue. I seem to be having problems getting motivated to go out and stop pucks these days.

I think it has to do with the little guy. Tonight I came home from work and put him in his chair, so he could watch us eat. The whole time, he sat and smiled at me. I’m finding I’d rather hang with him than go out to hockey

I guess it’s normal, but I do need to get my game back. If I don’t, I risk not being invited back to play next year. Tonight wasn’t so bad because a bunch of guys didn’t show up, so we played four on four.

But I’m still having trouble with my game. I can’t seem to get into the same grove I was in last year. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m more interested in being a dad these days, or if it’s just because I’m getting old.

I hope its the latter.