I admit I'm conflicted about Dion. I like people with some snap, crackle and pop. But Dion has intelligence, integrity and he has been resolute about a basic issue of Canadian politics: Unlike fellow candidate Michael Ignatieff, he doesn't think it is necessary to get into an argument now about whether Quebec is a nation.

He doesn't kid around about the constitution, either. He's worth listening to. He's the only Liberal leadership candidate who comes from Quebec's tough school of politics. His father, Léon Dion, a famed Quebec political scientist, always spoke his mind -- even if many disagreed with him.

He studied in Paris, then became, like his father, a political scientist at the Université de Montréal. After the 1995 referendum that the federalists nearly lost, Dion came to Ottawa. He was a tad politically naïve. In a byelection, he was offered Montréal's Saint-Laurent-Cartierville seat, one of the safest Liberal seats in Quebec. He didn't know where it was.