page_title: Stéphane Dion
section_title: Post-leadership
hierarchical_section_title: Stéphane Dion / Post-leadership
caption_attribution_description: English: Liberal MP and former Leader of the Opposition, Stéphane Dion, speaks at Carleton University on October 27th, 2009. Français&#160;: Député libéral et ancien chef de l'opposition, Stéphane Dion, parle à l'université Carleton le 27 octobre 2009.
context_page_description: Stéphane Maurice Dion PC is a Canadian diplomat, political scientist and retired politician who has been the Canadian Ambassador to Germany and special envoy to the European Union since 2017. Dion was Minister of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from 2015 until he was shuffled out of Cabinet in 2017. He was also the Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons from 2006 to 2008.
  Dion was Member of Parliament for the Montreal riding of Saint-Laurent from 1996 until 2017. Dion was recruited by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in 1996 to be Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in the aftermath of the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum. His reference question to the Supreme Court of Canada, produced Reference Re Secession of Quebec and his Clarity Act, which provided guidelines for subsequent referenda. Dion was in charge of implementing the Kyoto Protocol as Minister of Environment for Chrétien's successor, Paul Martin, whom he succeeded as party leader after the Liberal defeat in the 2006 federal election.
context_section_description: Ignatieff appointed a smaller shadow cabinet after being named interim leader and did not give Dion a critic role within it. Over the course of Ignatieff's time as leader Dion stayed out of the limelight, working quietly in his riding and expressing his views privately to Ignatieff.
  In September 2009, it was reported that Denis Coderre, Ignatieff's Quebec lieutenant, was attempting to oust Dion and fellow Montreal-area MPs Raymonde Folco, Lise Zarac, and Bernard Patry for the next election, with the hope of replacing them with star candidates. However, Coderre ended up resigning as Quebec Lieutenant during this time over conflicting views with Ignatieff and his inner circle.
  A 25 October 2009, poll suggested that Ignatieff had a lower popularity than Dion at his worst showing as Liberal leader. A month later Dion's wife Janine Krieber wrote a scathing letter on her Facebook page in which she suggested that the Liberal Party was in full collapse and the future appeared bleak. She questioned Ignatieff's ability to lead the party out of its current woes, alleging that party members were duped by Ignatieff and would have recognized his obvious shortcomings if they'd only taken the time to read his academic writings. Krieber claimed that Dion was working to rebuild the party after the disappointing 2008 election, but their efforts were stymied by Ignatieff, who turned down the coalition with the other opposition parties, and who "dethroned Dion without a leadership race". Dion was said to have no involvement in the criticism letter and later asked Krieber to remove the Facebook post, which talks of deep divisions in the Liberal Party.
caption: Dion speaks at Carleton University on 27 October 2009.
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