Angry in the Great White North

Shocking news that potential star candidate, former astronaut Marc Garneau, is not running for the Liberal Party:

Faced with ambivalence on the part of the Liberal party and the need to support his family, former Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau said Tuesday he has closed the door on the idea of seeking the Liberal nomination in Westmount-Ville Marie or any other riding.

The news came as a surprise to a group of Liberals who had been discreetly organizing and setting up a campaign website for him, who believed up until Tuesday their star candidate was in the running. It also came as a surprise to some Liberal party officials who believed, since Garneau never officially withdrew nomination papers he had filed, that he was still interested.

Marc Garneau ran in the last election, and lost. A major media draw, he wanted to run in the safe seat of Westmount -- at least as safe a seat as any Quebec seat is for the Liberals these days. Marc Garneau lives in Westmount, and filed his papers.

And then Stephane Dion spit on a Canada's first man in space:

In the spring, when Liberal MP Lucienne Robillard announced she would not run again, Garneau filed nomination papers -- as did several other candidates.

"I said this is the fit for me. I live here, I work here, I know people here," said Garneau, a Westmount resident. "This is the natural place for me."

However, Garneau became discouraged when Liberal Leader Stephane Dion announced three or four days later he would handpick the Liberal candidate for the riding.

"Mr. Dion said he would choose the nominee and in my own mind I was not sure that I would be that nominee."

Given that Marc Garneau was a supporter of Michael Ignatieff, Garneau's suspicions were probably right. All this was a month ago or more, before the disaster in Outremont. There Stephane Dion's handpicked candidate, academic Jocelyn Coulon, was trounced by the NDP and their star candidate Thomas Mulcair.

So maybe Marc Garneau is being hasty. Maybe the situation has changed, and Stephane Dion would be willing to let Garneau fight a nomination battle, and if selected by the riding members, run for the riding in an election.

Apparently nothing has changed. Stephane Dion still thinks he can pick winning candidates for these ridings:

Normand Houde, spokesman for the Quebec wing of the party, said there are no plans for Dion to give up the power to handpick candidates for two of the party's most winnable ridings in Quebec.

The calls come barely a week after the Liberals suffered an embarrassing defeat, losing three Quebec by-elections - including in Outremont, a riding that had voted Liberal for much of the last 80 years.

So even as Marc Garneau's supporters went through the motions of preparing to run in a riding in which Stephane Dion would appoint a different candidate, Marc Garneau knew Stephane Dion was on a path and would not be diverted. And Marc Garneau was not going to be asked to come along. Garneau knew that. Even after the disaster in Outremont, after all the platitudes spoken by a subdued Stephane Dion about teamwork and pulling together, Marc Garneau was not going to be asked to be part of that team, and the Liberal Party members of the riding of Westmount were not going to be asked to pull together. Stephane Dion, team of one and pulling alone, is still working to his plan.

That plan went disastrously wrong in Outremont, Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean, and St-Hyacinth-Bagot. But maybe it wasn't the plan. Maybe it was the people who implemented the plan. Maybe the execution was poor. Maybe Stephane Dion figures he needs to be surrounded by smarter and more loyal Liberals. And so Marc Garneau can take a hike while Stephane Dion continues to pick choice candidates in an attempt to prove to the Liberal Party that his judgment is sound and that the party did not make a mistake in electing him as leader.

The price of Stephane Dion's leadership in just the last two weeks alone has risen to three ridings, including a traditional stronghold, and a star candidate, with all the associated bad press. Liberals have to ask themselves just how much Stephane Dion's desire to show he is the right man for the job is going to cost the Liberal Party in the end. Liberals have to ask themselves whether the party can afford to pay that price, or if Stephane Dion has expended that line of credit.

For Marc Garneau not to run is bad enough. That the decision is embarrassing to the Liberal Party in the way it was reported is worse. Just when I think the Liberal Party is going to say enough is enough, the cost of Stephane Dion's leadership goes up even higher, and still the Liberal Party sits on its collective hands.

Obviously they see something in him I don't.

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