Ukrainian Canadians help elect Dion as leader of Liberal Party (12/24/06)

Ukrainian Canadians help elect Dion as leader of Liberal Party

by Oksana Zakydalsky

MONTREAL - From November 28 to December 3, the main hall of the Palais des Congres in Montreal had the look of an American party convention with its media pods high under the ceiling, its bobbing signs and 5,000 noisy delegates there to elect a new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. The party, which had formed the government under Paul Martin, had been trounced in the January 2006 elections by the Conservative Party led by Stephen Harper.

Mr. Martin resigned, so the new elected leader would, at this point, become the leader of the opposition and assume the post of Prime Minister sometime in the next year when the current Conservative minority government was expected to call the next election.

There were an estimated 70 Ukrainian delegates from the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec and Ontario - many of them members of the Ukrainian Canadian Liberal Association (UCLA). Delegates to the convention had been selected in riding elections back in September, with each riding able to send 14 elected delegates plus three or four ex-officio delegates.

The elected delegates had to commit to one of eight candidates and most from the Ukrainian group were in Montreal as supporters of Gerard Kennedy. But the committed delegates were required to vote for their declared choice only on the first ballot. After the first ballot, the bottom candidates would be eliminated and all delegates could vote as they chose. So, the focus issue was less on who was first at the beginning but on how the election process would evolve.

The Ukrainian contingent had two nodes. The Ontario group was gathered around Borys Wrzesnewskyj, member of Parliament from the Toronto Etobicoke Centre riding, who had worked for Mr. Kennedy since the beginning of the leadership contest.

This group had been energized by the tricky way candidate Michael Ignatieff had been parachuted into Toronto Etobicoke Lakeshore riding thick with Ukrainian voters a year ago. It was not only Mr. Ignatieff's derision of Ukrainians, expressed in his 1993 book "Blood and Belonging" ("Ukrainian independence conjures up images of peasant embroidered shirts, the nasal whine of ethnic instruments, phoney Cossacks in cloaks and boots, nasty anti-Semites [p.79] ... Somewhere inside, I'm also what Ukrainians would call a Great Russian, and there is just a trace of old Russian disdain for these 'little Russians' " [p.81]) and his absence of Canadian credentials (although born in Canada, he had lived in the U.K. and the U.S.A. in the previous 30 years). There was a natural distaste to the "sense of entitlement" on which his candidacy, backed by a powerful Liberal Party elite, was based. When the convention started, he was the front-runner based on the number of committed delegates, although he did not have a majority.

The other Ukrainian node was centred on Jim Jacuta and Andy Hladyshevsky from Edmonton, both of whom had run, but had been defeated, in the last election. The Ukrainian group stood out in its blue and yellow T-shirts in a sea of red (the official Liberal color).

In the end, four ballots were needed to choose the leader. After the second ballot, it was obvious that Mr. Ignatieff was not building any momentum (the key word of the convention) while Mr. Kennedy's momentum was tepid. That was the point when the crucial decision was made - Mr. Kennedy decided to drop out and throw his support to Stephane Dion - former Cabinet minister and strong federalist from Quebec. Mr. Kennedy was dubbed by the media, which had been predicting a Michael Ignatieff vs. Bob Rae final runoff, as the dark horse of the campaign.

Although there was no obligation for Kennedy supporters to join him in backing Mr. Dion, about 90 percent did so and sealed the outcome of the convention. Mr. Dion - who had made the environment one of the key issues of his campaign - became the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada with a final result of 54.7 percent for Mr. Dion and 45.2 percent for Mr. Ignatieff.

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