News

Stéphane Dion's campaign plane, a headache from the start, had to stop for an unscheduled landing in Montreal last night when a generator lost power.

Mr. Dion, his campaign team, and the reporters travelling on his plane waited on the tarmac at Pierre-Elliott Trudeau International Airport last night. Mr. Dion's team and the reporters boarded a new plane, a Bombardier Q400, at about 11:45 last night.

The Liberal plane was on a flight from Sherbrooke to London, Ont., when the lights in the cabin went off and the pilot announced an unscheduled stop because of a "slight problem."

Mr. Dion's communications director, Mark Dunn, said the plane has two generators, and one lost some power during the flight. The pilots decided to land to have it fixed as a precaution; it appeared the repairs would take several hours.

Mr. Dion's 30-year-old Air Inuit was the last one snagged by any party, as the Liberals, apparently caught off guard by the snap election, had to scramble to find a jet.

The 737s aren't known for generator problems, but have to meet a certain level of maintenance to take off again, one expert said. The biggest task for mechanics will be figuring out what exactly went wrong with the generator.

"I'm not sure the age of the airplane would have anything to do with it," said Scott Jackson, a pilot and former instructor, adding the problems are "almost certainly" wear and tear, but that it's impossible to tell.

The party has also dealt with grumblings this week that some of its insiders are upset with how the campaign has been run. Strategists said last night that the generator gaffe will only add fuel to the fire.

"People have been looking to reasons to poke holes in this campaign, and this is a gift to all those people," said Greg Lyle, former chief of staff for premiers Gordon Campbell and Gary Filmon. "This just feeds into a gaffe-watch."

Such seemingly small gaffes have shown potential to be catastrophic for campaigns, such as in the 1974 election, when Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield was photographed fumbling a football. He went on to lose to Pierre Trudeau's Liberals.

The key this time around is for Mr. Dion to laugh off the incident, said Peter Donolo, a partner with the Strategic Counsel polling firm. "It's not fatal, it's not the end of the world, but it becomes a symbol," Mr. Donolo said. "You've always got to make light of your own setbacks in politics and not take it too seriously."

Indeed, that's what Mr. Dion tried to do late last night. "It's what we call in French a contretemps," he said, using a word that means inconvenience. "But no more than that."

Week 2 of the campaign

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