Angry in the Great White North

The wheels continue to come off Stephane Dion's Liberal Party bus. Now a Liberal blogger wants Stephane Dion to denounce Liberal Party National Director Jamie Carroll:

Jamie Carroll, national director of the LPC and supporter of Stephane Dion, asked liberals from Quebec who were requesting that more quebecers be included in the party headquarters and the Office of the Loyal Opposition whether he should hire more people of Chinese origin (read here and here). This is completely inappropriate. Either Mr. Carroll is equating Chinese people with Quebecers in the context of Canadian politics or he is adopting a narrow conception of the Canadian experience - why couldn't one be a Quebecer with chinese origins? Even if this is a joke, Mr. Dion must declare that it is a bad one and must denounce Mr. Carroll's poor taste in humour and poor grasp of Canadian politics.

Some people never learn, do they? Of course, Mr. Carroll was also the person who publicly accused other former Liberal leadership candidates of plotting against Mr. Dion.

Souvereignists and conservative quebec nationalists are going to be quite pleased to read this. If I'm Gilles Duceppe, I'm saving this press clipping for the leaders' debates. It would good for Mr. Dion to react swiftly and avoid giving this story any traction.

When Jason Cherniak tried to defend Stephane Dion over the Douglas Jung gaffe, he did so by trying to establish that Conservative Douglas Jung was not Chinese enough to be considered Canada's first Chinese-Canadian member of parliament, an honour Stephane Dion mistakenly awarded to Liberal MP Arthur Lee. It was so embarrassing that a Dion spokesperson took pains to explain to the Chinese-language media that Jason Cherniak did not speak on behalf of the Liberal Party.

That's fine. Jason Cherniak was blogging.

But Jamie Carroll was speaking in his role as national director, and he was speaking to other Liberals in a Liberal Party meeting. It was a private meeting, but four individuals at the meeting told Marco Fortier of Le Journal about Carroll's comments.

There were only ten people at the meeting.

Still think I'm nuts to think that even before the by-election loss in Outremont, the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party has been in full revolt against Stephane Dion? Someone close to Dion says something stupid in a closed meeting, and nearly half of the Quebec Liberals present are only too happy to let the press know all about it. Amazing.

But back to the Chinese question. Just what was Jamie Carroll trying to say? That Quebecers are a sort of cultural minority in Canada like, say, Chinese-Canadians?

Stephen Harper and the Conservatives presented and passed a motion recognizing Quebecers as a nation within a united Canada.

Clearly this is not the way Stephane Dion's people perceive Canada and Quebec's place in it.

The Anonymous MP: It is interesting that immediately after Stephane Dion and the Liberals were pummelled in Outremont, one MP said Stephane Dion's inner circle would have to pay a price:

One anonymous Liberal MP pointed out to the Canadian Press that the Liberals' current seat count in Quebec -- 12 of 75 -- is the lowest since Confederation.

"There are going to have to be changes in the leader's entourage," said the MP.

So we know it is likely that at least member of the Liberal Party caucus is using this incident right now to push for some sort of action on Jamie Carroll.

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