OTTAWA - Stephane Dion, politically punch-drunk and roundly dismissed to the loser's column of party leaders, is on the verge of an astounding resurrection.
Ousting the Harper minority government to head a historic coalition would be the Liberal leader's most stunning comeback by far. It would also spare him the dubious distinction of becoming just the second Liberal chief who never became prime minister.
"It's all about the economy," Dion said Monday as he sat flanked by his former NDP and Bloc Quebecois rivals to announce a governing entente that would take power if the Conservatives are defeated in a confidence vote next Monday.
But for the owlish 53-year-old Dion, it's about so much more.
"It's a great privilege that I will receive," he said of the sudden chance to take the reins of power until his replacement is chosen in May.
"And I will work day and night for that."
Dion announced his plan to step down within days of leading the Liberals to their second-worst election defeat in history.
Edward Blake is the only Liberal leader who failed to form a government after losing both the 1882 and 1887 elections.
Dion could only watch on election night Oct. 14 as his party was reduced to 77 seats from 95. Voters scattered in droves from his plan to tax fossil fuels in return for income-tax cuts.
It was a comparatively complex, tough-sell policy that proved easy pickings for a multimillion-dollar barrage of Tory attack ads.
Dion's political epitaph appeared to be all but written. And yet here he is, poised to rise again.
It reinforces a personal track record of beating low expectations that goes back to his earliest days in Ottawa. Former prime minister Jean Chretien recalled in his memoirs his first impression of the professorial, backpack-toting Dion.
"When he showed up wearing heavy boots and a toque, covered in snow and carrying a knap-sack on his back, I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, what have I got myself into?' "
Former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard famously dissed Dion as a "nobody."
Dion went on to outright defy the vilification of Bouchard and other separatists in his home province to craft the Clarity Act that defined rules for secession.
"People have always underestimated me," Dion said the morning after his surprise Liberal leadership victory on Dec. 2, 2006 - almost two years to the day of Monday's coalition announcement.
"It has worked for me."
