Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion pauses during his concession speech on Oct. 14 as his wife, Janine Krieber, applauds. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is expected to announce on Monday that he will resign as party leader, after a growing chorus of MPs have been calling for him to step aside, including two party veterans and a newly elected member.
Liberal insiders say Dion, who hasn't been seen in public since conceding the federal election on Tuesday night, has accepted that he can't survive a May leadership review vote and will announce his decision to step down, the Canadian Press reported Friday.
His expected announcement comes as Jim Karygiannis, who was elected in Scarborough-Agincourt in Toronto, told CBC Newsworld on Friday that Dion must resign after the party "tanked" in the Oct. 14 federal election.
"It's about time he exits with grace and dignity. He's an honest man. He's got a lot of integrity. Unfortunately things didn't go as well as we were planning [them] to go," Karygiannis said of the five-week election campaign.
Karygiannis criticized Dion for failing to communicate with Liberal candidates during the election, giving last-minute notice of visits to their ridings and leaving them largely to their own devices.
Toronto MP Joe Volpe, who also ran for the leadership in 2006, was the first party member to publicly call for Dion's resignation.
"Clearly, it appears that nobody's going to give him the chance to do that rebuilding and I'd like him to go out with some dignity," Volpe told CTV's Mike Duffy Live on Thursday.
New MP joins calls
Volpe said it was necessary so the Liberal party can rebuild after being reduced to 76 seats in Tuesday's federal election, one of the party's worst-ever showings.
Newly elected Liberal MP in Newfoundland and Labrador, Scott Andrews, followed in his footsteps Friday, telling the St. John's Telegram newspaper that Dion should take responsibility for failing to sell the Green Shift environmental plan.
"He had this idea of the Green Shift and even he couldn't sell it to people, let alone the candidates. We tried," he said in an interview with the newspaper.
Dion must let the party know whether a May 2009 conference will be a leadership convention, said Volpe.
Growing pressure
The Liberals captured only 26.2 per cent of the popular vote — two points lower than the party's disastrous 1984 finish with John Turner at the helm and only four points ahead of the party's worst-ever results in 1867.
Media reports indicate a growing pressure on Dion to step down.
A Toronto Star report Thursday said Dion was intending to step down later that day, but a spokesperson for the leader quickly refuted the story, saying no such announcement was planned.
Other newspapers published reports quoting senior party officials as saying Dion would set the wheels in motion for a leadership change and speculated on possible successors.
Dion, who served as intergovernmental affairs minister under Jean Chrétien and environment minister under Paul Martin, claimed the mantle of party leader on Dec. 2, 2006. His victory came as a surprise to most after he finished third with less than 18 per cent of the vote on the first ballot.
But with the backing of leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy, Dion was able to vault past the two star candidates Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae.
Ignatieff, Rae and Kennedy, along with former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna and former deputy prime minister John Manley have been suggested as possible future leadership candidates.
With files from the Canadian Press
