TORONTO and OTTAWA -- Toronto MP Michael Ignatieff launched a bulldozer-charge at the federal Liberal leadership yesterday, campaigning for the party's House of Commons caucus to elect him immediately as an interim replacement for Stéphane Dion. Mr. Ignatieff's organizers said last night they had the support of at least 55 of the party's 77 MPs, including Mr. Dion's most vocal supporter, suburban Toronto MP Bryon Wilfert, and MP Maurizio Bevilacqua, who chaired the 2006 leadership campaign of Mr. Ignatieff's major opponent, Bob Rae.In addition, leadership contender Dominic LeBlanc was preparing to fly to Toronto last night to meet with Mr. Ignatieff. He is widely expected to drop his own leadership bid and pledge support to Mr. Ignatieff today along with a group of Atlantic MPs and senators.The plan called for Mr. Dion to be ousted Wednesday followed by a vote to put Mr. Ignatieff at the helm as interim leader. At some second-stage process - possibly the leadership convention currently scheduled for May - the party either would confirm him as leader or turn to his only other declared opponent, Mr. Rae.
Should the Ignatieff plan prevail, the proposed Liberal-NDP coalition could well be scuttled. Mr. Ignatieff was never an avid supporter of the coalition and had turned against it by Saturday, according to party insiders. Support for the coalition from the caucus had also weakened. Mr. Rae also would like Mr. Dion to resign sooner rather than later, but he was strongly opposed to the Wednesday caucus vote and urged the party's national executive to reject the idea.Mr. Rae has proposed a one-member, one-vote combination of telephone and online balloting to be held in January.The party's national executive held a teleconference late into the night yesterday to debate the issue.
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