Brison bid to take flight in WolfvilleBy STEPHEN MAHER Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA — Scott Brison is planning to launch his campaign for the leadership of the federal Liberal party in Wolfville on Sunday.
A spokeswoman says Mr. Brison intends to make the announcement at the Old Orchard Inn after the annual general meeting of the Kings-Hants Liberal riding association. Liberals in Ottawa expect Mr. Brison to be in the small group of serious candidates for the leadership of the party, although not at the front of the group.
The other front-runners are Michael Ignatieff and Stephane Dion, who have announced their candidacies, and Gerard Kennedy, Ken Dryden and Bob Rae, who are expected to announce their candidacies soon.
Some other Liberal MPs expected to run are Joe Volpe, Maurizio Bevilacqua and Carolyn Bennett. John Godfrey has dropped out for health reasons and Belinda Stronach has pulled out, complaining about the structure of the leadership contest, which will be decided by delegates at a convention in Montreal in December.
Mr. Brison impressed many Liberals with his performance at a leadership forum in Edmonton last month, and most commentators then placed him in the pack of front-runners.
But a recent poll shows he has less support from Canadians than the other front-runners, with only one per cent of those polled saying he should lead the party.
That may not mean much, said Susan Murray, Mr. Brison’s spokeswoman, because Liberal delegates will choose the next leader, not randomly selected Canadians.
"I think that’s a completely bogus poll, but that’s for other people to decide," she said. "We have a sense that he’s going to be up there among the top contenders." Mr. Brison is building a serious national team, Ms. Murray said.
"There’s an awful lot of people who are doing an awful lot of things in all sorts of provinces," she said. "I don’t think Scott would run unless he could run a first-class campaign. Where it ends up, we don’t know, but he definitely wants to run a first-class campaign and a campaign of ideas."
Many observers expected Mr. Brison would drop out of the race early last month after it was revealed that he was questioned by the RCMP in their investigation of a possible leak of inside information to income trust traders in advance of a Liberal announcement on a tax question.
Mr. Brison sent an e-mail to an acquaintance on Bay Street a day before the announcement, saying he expected the government to act soon. When a Globe and Mail reporter asked him about the e-mail, he initially denied any knowledge of it, a denial his critics have called a lie.
Mr. Brison held a news conference the day after the story broke, acknowledging that he made an error in judgment but denying any wrongdoing because, he said, he had no inside knowledge to pass on. Early on, the story seemed to hurt his campaign, but he seems to have successfully put the issue behind him, at least for now.
It was the second time Mr. Brison’s BlackBerry habits had got him into trouble. In February, an assistant mistakenly forwarded an e-mail from him in which he seemed to take her to task for nagging him about his French lessons. Ms. Murray said Mr. Brison’s team has not taken his BlackBerry away from him. "No, but I think that might be a good idea, looking forward," she said.
Many Liberals say it would be very difficult for Mr. Brison to win the Liberal leadership because he only joined the party in 2003, crossing the floor after the Progressive Conservatives merged with the Canadian Alliance. A delegated convention tends to reward candidates with deep roots in the party, a factor that seems to have contributed to Ms. Stronach’s decision to drop out.
Some have also questioned whether Mr. Brison’s French is good enough to rebuild the party in Quebec.
On the other hand, Mr. Brison is much younger than most of the front-runners, and more conservative economically, so will likely be able to contrast himself with them and stake out some turf for a vigorous campaign. And his leadership bid seems to have attracted a significant amount of support among young Liberals, a powerful group at any leadership convention.
(
smaher@herald.ca)
GO SCOTT GO!
