OTTAWA - Stephane Dion is resisting pressure to fire the Liberal party's national director who suggested that former leadership rivals may be plotting against the new boss.
Deputy leader Michael Ignatieff told Dion over the weekend that Jamie Carroll should be fired, sources say.
While he did not demand Carroll's head or issue any ultimatums on the matter, they say Ignatieff argued that Carroll can't remain ostensibly in charge of rebuilding and unifying the party after publicly casting aspersions on the loyalty of erstwhile leadership competitors.
"He was forceful that it was his view that (Carroll) should go,'' said one well-placed insider.
Although displeased with Carroll's public musings, sources say Dion indicated that he would not fire his hand-picked choice for the party's top administrative post.
Ignatieff, who was overtaken by Dion on the final ballot at last December's leadership convention, was incensed by comments from Carroll in a new book released Saturday.
In "Against the Current,'' author Linda Diebel writes that two months ago Carroll began to doubt the wisdom of Dion giving key roles to all his former rivals -- including his choice to make Ignatieff deputy leader.
"I am starting to wonder if he may not have been a little too good to his former competitors,'' Carroll is quoted as saying.
Diebel writes that Carroll "lived in fear of an all-out drive against Dion,'' orchestrated by one or more of Dion's top three leadership rivals -- Ignatieff, Bob Rae and Gerard Kennedy.
"What they do in public doesn't bother me. It's the shit they do behind the scenes -- which I may not know they're doing -- that keeps me up at night,'' Carroll is quoted as saying.
Senior organizers for each of the former contenders were privately furious about the remarks, particularly those in the Ignatieff camp on whom Carroll's suspicions seemed primarily focused.
Ignatieff, who was overtaken by Dion on the final ballot at last December's leadership convention, acknowledged Monday that he'd spoken to Dion about the matter.
"I've made my views very clear to the leader and I think he's communicated that to Mr. Carroll, as far as I know,'' he said.
Still, Ignatieff attempted to downplay the controversy, declaring: "Look, I get up in the morning, I show up, I prepare for QP (question period), I do my job. We've united the party. All this stuff is kind of tired rehash gossip from a leadership campaign that's over.''
But Montreal MP Denis Coderre, who co-chaired Ignatieff's leadership campaign, was clearly seething. He called Carroll's comments "totally misplaced'' and "totally unacceptable.''
"There is no clans and I will not accept that anybody from the party who's stating that there's some clans who are plotting right now because . . . it's not true,'' Coderre said.
He praised Ignatieff as "a model of dignity, a model of loyalty.''
Kennedy took a more conciliatory tone, saying that regardless of Carroll's attitude, he's found Dion and his leadership team to be mostly welcoming and open.
"I think it's natural for some of the folks that brought Mr. Dion the leadership to feel protective of him,'' Kennedy said in an interview.
"But Mr. Dion himself and by and large his folks have been pretty open to me so that's the main frame of reference I have.''
Some of Kennedy's leadership supporters were actually more miffed about a weekend report suggesting that Dion had fired Kennedy as his special election readiness adviser. In fact, they said Kennedy quit six weeks ago when it became apparent there would not be an election this spring.
Privately, many senior Liberals were grumbling that Carroll's distrust of former rivals was reminiscent of the paranoid, bunker mentality that characterized both camps in the leadership civil war between Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.
The ensuing internal strife ripped the Liberals apart.
Several noted snarkily that Carroll is supposed to work with all Liberals, including the 83 per cent who didn't vote for Dion on the first leadership ballot.
Carroll declined to comment, as did Rae. A spokesman for Dion similarly refused comment, other than to insist: "We're all working together as a team, as we've been doing since December.''
