On recycling

It's understandable that Stephane Dion is trying to reorient his public impression before the Cons' attempts to define him stick in the minds of voters. But are the Libs really any better off if he's presenting no greater vision than to keep doing what got the Libs booted out of office last year?

In Nova Scotia yesterday, Mr. Dion promised to reinstitute Liberal social programs cut by Stephen Harper's Conservatives and to forgo another planned cut to the GST...

The Liberal Leader made it clear yesterday he does not believe the Liberals lost the Jan. 23, 2006, election on their social policies.

“We will argue that there cannot be true prosperity without social justice, that good social policies make for a stronger economy. Canadians deserve to know that their federal government will be there when they need help. And they deserve a federal government willing to help them.”

He said that, if elected prime minister, he will reinstitute programs cut by the Tories, such as the multi-billion-dollar daycare subsidies negotiated by former Liberal minister Ken Dryden...

Mr. Dion said that he will reinstitute proposed funding for student assistance and university research that the Conservatives did not implement.

It's understandable that Dion is seeking to move beyond the environment as a central theme before he does too much damage to his reputation on that issue.

But a message that Dion is willing to do nothing more than what the Libs already had planned speaks poorly to his ability to contribute new ideas on social justice issues. And for both Dion individually and the Libs as a whole, a message of "same old Libs" only seems likely to continue the pattern of electoral declines which the leadership convention presumably intended to reverse.