{"id":1006,"date":"2006-07-17T02:57:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-17T06:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1006"},"modified":"2006-07-17T02:57:00","modified_gmt":"2006-07-17T06:57:00","slug":"stephane-dion-soundbytes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1006","title":{"rendered":"Stephane Dion Soundbytes"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can read the first two parts of my interview with Stephane Dion here <\/a>and here<\/a>. Today, a quick run-down of what Mr. Dion had to say on a wide range of topics:<\/p>\n

On Education<\/strong>
\u201cI know one candidate wants to be Prime Minister to deal with education but he had 40% of the students in his old ministry and that\u2019s where he could have made a difference<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dion doesn\u2019t feel we need education standards since \u201cpeople don\u2019t want government in the classrooms<\/em>\u201d. However, he sees a role for the federal government when it comes to giving money directly to students, or for spending on research. He likes what John Manley did for innovation and would like Canada to be the best country in the G8 when it comes to innovation.<\/p>\n

On the Federal Government\u2019s Role in Health Care<\/strong>
For Dion, the federal government must respect the Canada Health Act and the principle that access is not linked to wallet size. However, he doesn\u2019t see a major role beyond that: \u201cWe should not be over the shoulder of provinces in health if they respect this<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Youth Centres<\/strong>
Dion really likes the work John Godfrey did to fund fitness centres. Stephane sees a lot of youth in his riding who do nothing on the street. \u201cThat\u2019s not good for their health but it\u2019s also not good for Canada<\/em>.\u201d He\u2019d like to see more programs and centres to keep young people active.<\/p>\n

On the One Ton Challenge and Paul Martin<\/strong>
\u201cThe one ton challenge was not stupid. It was much more than TV ads with Rick Mercer. It was about encouraging people to make good decisions.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul helped me, but I wonder if he was aware of the one ton challenge. The PM must be aware of the issues<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

On the Afghanistan Extension<\/strong>
Dion supported the current mission, but not the vote Harper sprung on Parliament. He said it was insulting to hear people say \u201cwe need to support the troops\u201d since every MP in parliament obviously supports the troops.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad we made the mistake to go to Iraq, like some people wanted us to, would we say we need to stay there forever, just to support the troops<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

On the Liberal Handling of the Vote<\/strong>
\u201cWe should have voted unified; it would have made us a better opposition party.\u201d
<\/em>
Because of the importance of the mission and the vote, it would have been better for the Liberal Party to stay unified on this topic. Dion would have liked the party to insist that Harper come back in October with the full details of the mission: NATO\u2019s role, what other countries are involved, will we revisit parameters, what is our capacity to do other missions? If Harper refused, it was up to the party to say no.<\/p>\n

What he said to Bill Graham before the vote<\/strong>
\u201cLook Bill, you\u2019re not a Minister anymore. You\u2019re there to check the government. How can we check it in six hours of debate?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

On Kyoto<\/strong>
Kyoto is \u201cmore than a target<\/em>\u201d, it\u2019s \u201ca global approach to a global problem<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

On Arctic Sovereignty
<\/strong>Dion wants to build large National Parks in the north and welcome scientists from around the world to study in the north. He feels this would help assert our claim of sovereignty in the arctic.<\/p>\n

On the Green Party<\/strong>
According to Dion, they\u2019re \u201ca one issue party<\/em>\u201d. Liberal success over the years has been because of the two pillars of \u201ceconomy\u201d and \u201csocial justice\u201d. He feels the time has come to add environmental sustainability as a third pillar.<\/p>\n

On the GST Cut<\/strong>
Dion would keep the GST at 6% but would not lower it to 5%. The four billion saved from this would be spent on the national tax benefit and on money for the working poor.<\/p>\n

I finished the interview by asking him to give a quick word or two about his ten competitors<\/p>\n

On Michael Ignatieff<\/strong>: “A great intellect. Ten years ago, I would not have been ready for federal politics. I’m not saying Michael isn’t, I’m just saying I wouldn’t have been. Experience is really the key; Trudeau had experience before becoming Prime Minister and I think my time in intergovernmental affairs has given me good experience since I got to see a lot of files. Academia is good training, but you still need experience<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Gerard Kennedy<\/strong>: “Gerard\u2019s a good politician and very engaging. I don\u2019t know him well but I question why he went to federal politics if it was to make education a top issue. I will say that his experience at the provincial level is valuable. My colleagues like Lucienne Robillard who came from provincial politics always had a good perspective about the provincial view point which is important. As part of the team, Gerard will do great work, but I hope he\u2019s moved to federal politics to do something different<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

On Bob<\/strong>: “I have a lot of admiration for Bob Rae and I appointed him as head of the forum of federation. He did great work there. However, I would ask him, as a friendly question, \u201care you aware of one Liberal who would take out an NDP membership and run for NDP leadership the next day?\u201d I\u2019d just ask that as a friendly question<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

On Joe Volpe<\/strong>: “A good colleague. He was a good minister of immigration<\/em>.” [ed note: Dion has obviously learned from Denis Corderre and Michael Ignatieff that those who attack Joe Volpe have to deal with the consequences]<\/p>\n

On Carolyn Bennett<\/strong>: “She did great work in Public Health<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

On Ken Dryden<\/strong>: “My hero! I was always a big Canadiens fan. He\u2019s the \u201cbig guy for little kids\u201d, and recognized the economic benefits of child care.”<\/em><\/p>\n

On Hedy Fry<\/strong>: “I like Hedy a lot and she was a good colleague. She\u2019s been an MP since 1993 so she has more experience as an MP than me, although less in Cabinet<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

On Maurizio Bevilacqua<\/strong>: “Maurizio has a very good understanding of the economy<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

On Martha Hall Findlay<\/strong>: “The more I know about her, the better I like her<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

On Scott Brison<\/strong>: “A very good policy mind. I don\u2019t always agree with him, but he puts ideas on the table which is good<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

On the Field as a whole<\/strong>: \u201cWhen you look at the candidates, we have brilliant intellectuals, great provincial politicians, Martha \u201cthe rookie\u201d, and some great colleagues of mine. I\u2019m really happy to be in this race with so many strong candidates<\/em>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can read the first two parts of my interview with Stephane Dion here and here. Today, a quick run-down of what Mr. Dion had to say on a wide range of topics: On Education\u201cI know one candidate wants to be Prime Minister to deal with education but he had 40% of the students in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}