Canada's Liberal party takes hit in elections - International Herald Tribune

OTTAWA: Canadian opposition Liberal leader Stephane Dion staked his once- dominant party's election hopes on an unpopular environmental tax during slowing economic times.

He lost big.

Stung by Conservative arguments that his plan would hurt the economy, his party suffered a drubbing Tuesday, dropping to 76 seats in Parliament from 95. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's ruling Conservatives climbed within a dozen seats of a majority, taking 143 seats of 308 in Parliament.
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As former U.S. Vice President Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" was popular and climate change was a top issue in Canada, Dion made climate change his central issue when he ran for leadership.

But, he found resistance when he moved his party further to the crowded left by staking his leadership on a "Green Shift" tax plan that would introduce a carbon tax on all fossil fuels.

He had little success selling the plan to Canadians and even members of his own party, as the Conservatives targeted Dion's plan in television and radio ads, saying it would drive up energy costs in a time of high energy prices. Dion said he would offset the higher prices by cutting income taxes.

"He sure was stubborn not to give into people in his own party who wanted him to forget about it," said Peter Russell, a longtime friend of Dion's and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto.

"Everybody told him, and he told me this, that people in his party said, 'No, don't do it because the public aren't ready for it and government will say it is just a new tax.' That's exactly what happened."

Robert Bothwell, director of the international relations program at the University of Toronto, argued the time to propose a tax is after an election win, not when a party is hoping to regain power.