I think the suspicion with which Canadians view the Liberals is not because of their "13 years of incumbency" but rather the big sponsorship scandal that brought down Paul Martin (and which would have brought down Chretien if he hadn't had the foresight to quit before it all blew up). That said, I don't think Dion will be viewed as "one of that gang," certainly not as much as Martin (who was finance minister in the Chretien government) was.

I do think the Liberals will win the next election, if only because so many Canadians are embarrassed and worried at the damage that Stephen Harper has done to our reputation and image, and I'm confident that enough people want the conservatives out that they'll vote in the Liberals.

But Dion has a lot of patching-things-up to do if he's going to do well in Québec. He says he's going to work on that between now and the next election (which probably won't happen until spring at the earliest). The separatists here (of whom there are plenty) are still steamed at him and he's going to lose a lot of votes to the Bloc Québecois (the federal-level party that looks after Québecois' interests) unless he mends the fences.

There are any number of them, aren't there, from preserving the BC coast, to preserving the boreal forest, to regulating extraction of petroleum and natural gas in Alberta, to figuring out hydro-electric in view of First Peoples' interests in northern Quebec, to the miserable, impoverished fisheries of the North Atlantic.

Just for starters.

(No more seal slaughter!)

I am glad that Stephen Harper's hint to bring the legality of same-sex marriage back into discussion, with the interesting reference to the newish constitutional "not withstanding" clause, seems not to have got far.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!