A7

By JOAN BRYDEN
The Canadian Press

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OTTAWA - Stephane Dion is poised to become only the second Liberal leader in Canadian history who never became prime minister.

Dion is expected to announce today that he's stepping aside, just a week after leading the party to its worst electoral showing since Confederation.

Whether he'll stay on as leader until a successor is chosen, likely at a party convention in May, remains unclear. Insiders close to Dion, who was elected leader only 22 months ago, said he was still wrestling with that decision Sunday.

Only one other Liberal chief - Edward Blake, who held the party's top job from 1880-87 - has left the post without serving as prime minister.

Dion went into seclusion after conceding defeat in last Tuesday's election, meeting only with a small coeterie of trusted advisers and making calls to Liberal MPs. He was said to be crushed, angry and hurt.

Insiders say only a handful of MPs urged Dion to try to hang on, arguing that he deserved a second chance and couldn't be held entirely responsible for the party's dismal election performance.

The Liberals were reduced to 76 seats last Tuesday, down from 103 in the 2006 election, and won only 26.2 per cent of the popular vote - two points lower than the disastrous showing in 1984 under John Turner and only four points ahead of the worst ever result in 1867.

Whatever the legitimacy of the arguments for giving him another shot, most MPs and Dion's closest advisers told the leader he couldn't win a mandatory, party-wide vote of confidence at a policy convention booked for May in Vancouver.

Dion is expected to remain as the MP for his Montreal riding. But his advisers were split Sunday on whether he should resign as leader immediately or remain until a successor is chosen.

One camp contended it would be in the party's best interests for Dion to hang on as head of the shrunken Liberal opposition in the Commons until a leadership convention is held.

But another camp argued that Dion would be a lame duck without moral authority to command his troops in crucial Commons votes. They said he shouldn't subject himself to more humiliation at the hands of a fractious caucus to whom he owes little, if anything.

If Dion does resign as leader immediately, an interim leader will be chosen by the party's national executive, based on the consensus opinion of Liberal MPs and senators.

Party insiders denied reports Sunday that Toronto-area MP John McCallum had already been chosen. They said no decision could be made until Dion made his intentions clear.

They also said there were several possibilities for interim leader, including veteran Regina MP Ralph Goodale as well as McCallum.

Goodale, who has been serving as the party's House leader, is seen as an effective communicator - at least in English - and is generally well-liked. He doesn't speak French, but some believe that handicap could be offset by choosing a francophone deputy leader.

McCallum, who refused to comment Sunday on speculation that he'd be interim leader, is fluently bilingual and a feisty Commons performer. A former bank economist, he's seen by some as a good choice to lead the opposition assault on the Conservative government's handling of the faltering economy.

A complicating factor is that an interim leader normally has to be seen as neutral in the contest to select a permanent replacement.