OTTAWA - Stephane Dion remained undecided Tuesday whether to bring down the Harper government over its throne speech even as evidence mounted that his Liberal team -- particularly in Quebec -- is not ready to fight an election.
The Liberal leader lost both his Quebec lieutenant and the director general of the party's Quebec wing just hours before Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled the government's blueprint for the new session of Parliament.
Dion dipped into Liberal ranks in the Senate to fill one vacancy but was still scrambling late Tuesday to find a replacement for the other.
During a morning caucus meeting to discuss how they should respond to the throne speech, sources said only six of 30 speakers said Liberals should vote against the speech and topple the government.
But insiders say that Dion himself, despite receiving virtually unanimous advice to the contrary, is hawkish about forcing an election. He fears his reputation as a champion of the environment and progress he's made wooing Green and other left-wing voters will be seriously hurt if Liberals don't vote against Harper's anti-Kyoto message.
Given the disarray in the party, one senior Grit said Dion's preference for an election is "suicidal'' while others questioned whether he'd be able to persuade his MPs to follow his lead. Dion will not make a final decision about how Liberals will vote until he's met again with his caucus on Wednesday.
While Dion was grappling with the throne speech, Hull MP Marcel Proulx confirmed that he resigned over the weekend as the leader's Quebec lieutenant.
While Proulx said he's a team player and has no problem with being replaced, sources said he quit after learning that Dion had offered the lieutenant's post to Montreal MP Denis Coderre.
However, Coderre declined and Dion then tried to persuade Pablo Rodriguez, another Montreal MP, to take the post. Late Tuesday, he was set to announce that Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette will take the job.
Hervieux-Payette is a veteran Liberal with an extensive network and experience as an organizer. She once served as national campaign co-chair for Jean Chretien. Insiders acknowledge that Hervieux-Payette has one big luxury in taking on the challenge: unlike Coderre or Rodriguez, she doesn't have to worry about fighting to hold onto her own seat in an election.
Adding to the perception of disarray, the party's director general in Quebec, Serge Marcil, tendered his resignation Tuesday. Robert Fragasso, president of the Quebec wing, said Marcil will stay on the job until the end of the week but has lined up a new job in the private sector.
Inner circle in disarray
The Liberal party has been without a national director since last week when Jamie Carroll resigned amid controversy over his allegedly dismissive response to demands to include more Quebecers in Dion's inner circle.
The disarray comes in the wake of the Liberals' humiliating defeat in three Quebec byelections last month, including the loss of the Liberals' longtime Montreal fortress of Outremont.
Since then, insiders close to Dion have been saying that the leader intends to shake up his Quebec team, too many of whom were deemed to have been apologetic about the leader. Dion, whose uncompromising stand against separatism has left him unpopular in his home province, was expected to install people who could be relied upon to promote and defend him.
However, Proulx and Marcil jumped the gun and quit before replacements had been found. That news of their departures should leak out only hours before the throne speech was particularly bad timing for Dion.
"In the circumstances, we can't hide the fact that we're going through difficult times,'' Fragasso said.
Still, he maintained there are high-calibre people waiting in the wings to fill Marcil's post.
