Chantal Hebert: Tory majority

As I have said before, bring it on dion. Chantal Hebert feels a June election would be very bad news for the grits.

Pulling the plug on Stephen Harper's minority government would certainly bring relief to Dion, who has faced scathing criticism for not doing so over the budget or the Afghan mission.
But the Liberals would be trading a short-term gain for long-term pain.
An election triggered over immigration might improve the impressive majorities of the Toronto Liberals who are itching to go to the polls on the issue. But in many other regions of Canada, not the least of which Quebec, it could tip enough marginal seats in the Conservative camp to give Harper a governing majority.
In an election this spring, Dion would go to voters with his personal standing at a dismal low. In the glaring absence of election fever outside of the immediate radius of Parliament Hill, he would be portrayed as plunging the country into a campaign to avoid a challenge to his uncertain leadership.
That would virtually guarantee that the campaign would boil down to the issue of leadership, with Liberal doubts about Dion spilling over onto the electorate.