OTTAWA - Liberals are preparing to pay tribute to Stephane Dion but organizers are hoping party members will pay something more substantial: cold, hard cash to help retire his leadership debt.
As of Dec. 31, Dion still owed $200,000 from his successful 2006 leadership campaign.
And, according to the latest financial statements filed with Elections Canada, he wasn't the only one still struggling to pay off his debts.
Seven contenders from the 2006 contest owed more than $1.4 million combined, the financial statements show.
Michael Ignatieff paid off his 2006 debt just in time to assume the leadership last December, when Dion stepped down.
Erstwhile rivals Bob Rae and Carolyn Bennett were the only contenders who were able to retire their debts within the initial 18-month repayment period, which ended last June. The rest, including Ignatieff and Dion, were granted extensions of a year to 18 months by Elections Canada.
Privately, some Liberal insiders predict much of the remaining leadership debts will never be repaid. Under the law, Elections Canada can eventually allow leadership loans to be written off if there's no realistic chance of repayment.
Unlike some of his former rivals, Dion will get a high-profile chance to at least make a dent in his lingering debt during the Liberal party's spring convention in Vancouver. The April 30-May 2 event is technically a leadership convention, at which Ignatieff will be formally acclaimed.
As part of the festivities, the party is organizing a proper send-off for Dion, who made a hurried, ignominious departure last December after leading the Liberals to one of their worst-ever election showings and botching a subsequent effort to sell Canadians on a proposal to form a coalition government.
Tribute organizers are also planning to stage a separate fundraising event for Dion during the convention.
"Lots of folks want to help him with this (debt) so we'll try to take advantage of that while they're all in one place," said Jamie Carroll, one of the tribute organizers.
But all the goodwill in the world won't necessarily clear Dion's debt - or the debts of his former rivals.
Carroll said political financing reforms introduced in 2004 present the "biggest challenge" to raising money. The Liberals are the only big, mainstream party so far to conduct a leadership contest under the new rules.
Under the law, an individual can donate no more than a total of $1,100 to one or more candidates during the life of a leadership contest. The life of a contest includes the period following the actual leadership vote, during which contenders are raising money to pay off their debts.
That debt-repayment period, as Liberals have discovered, can drag on for years. And the longer it goes on, the harder it becomes to find sympathizers who haven't already contributed the maximum donation.
"This is now a three-year-old (donation) limit. It's getting pretty stale," said Carroll.
"So far, I think there's a pretty reasonable amount of goodwill to help Stephane pay off his debt and move on and all that sort of thing. But it's mostly on the part of people who are regular donors and therefore are hit by the limit."
The same problem is confronting most of Dion's former leadership rivals.
According to the financial statements, Toronto MP Gerard Kennedy still owed $307,216 in loans and unpaid claims as of Dec. 31.
Toronto-area MPs Ken Dryden, Maurizio Bevilacqua and Joe Volpe owed $365,272, $275,730 and $140,090 respectively.
Nova Scotia MP Scott Brison owed $45,000 and Vancouver MP Hedy Fry owed $95,500.
Elections Canada has not yet posted the latest financial statement for Toronto MP Martha Hall Findlay.
