Abstract.We prove that the canonical dimension of a coadmissible repre-
sentation of a semisimple p-adic Lie group in a p-adic Banach space is e*
*ither
zero or at least half the dimension of a non-zero coadjoint orbit. To do*
* this we
establish analogues for p-adically completed enveloping algebras of Bern*
*stein's