Still stinging from last week’s byelection disaster, Stéphane Dion awoke yesterday to more bad news.

First was the disastrous opinion poll numbers in Quebec. Then one of his own MPs told reporters Dion is too old to change his ways and win the hearts of Quebecers. The third stroke was ex-astronaut Marc Garneau, now a Montrealer, announcing publicly that he won't be part of Dion’s team in the next election.

It didn't get better.

Today came reports that the federal Liberal Party’s Quebec wing is so strapped for cash it might have to close its Montreal headquarters.

“Not a chance!” Dion’s office tells CBC, suggesting there’s simply a renegotiation of cost-sharing going on between the Liberal Party of Canada and its Quebec wing, the kind of thing that goes on regularly between national and provincial offices, at least according to the federal leader's office.

But asked repeatedly whether the Quebec arm of the party is short $250,000 it reportedly needs by Friday, as media reports have suggested, the spokesman would not say.

True or not, however, it’s clear someone among Quebec Liberals decided to leak the story, knowing it’s not the kind of headline Dion needs these days in Quebec.