Leadership convention

In Canadian politics, a leadership convention is held by a political party when the party needs to choose a leader due to a vacancy or a challenge to the incumbent leader.

Overview

In Canada, the leader of a party generally remains that party's "de facto" candidate for Prime Minister until such time as he or she dies, resigns or is dismissed by the party. In the New Democratic Party and some of its provincial branches, the position of party leader was treated as all other positions on the party's executive committee, and open for election at party conventions generally held every two years though incumbent leaders rarely face more than token opposition.

Traditionally, each riding association of a party holds a special meeting to elect a fixed number of delegates to represent it at a leadership convention. These meeting would often select "alternate delegates" or "alternates", who would attend the convention, but vote only if one of the delegates from the riding association was unable to attend. In addition, delegates are often selected by the party's youth and women's associations in each riding, and party associations at university and college campuses.

In addition to the elected delegates, a large number of "ex officio" delegates attend and vote at leadership conventions. These "ex officio" delegates are automatically entitled to attend by virtue of being an elected member of parliament for that party, a member of an affiliated party in a provincial legislature, a member of the party's national or provincial executive, of the executive of an affiliated women's or youth organization.

Because of the implementation of "one member one vote" (OMOV) systems and proportional delegate elections by most parties, conventions have declined in importance. In recent years, the result of the vote is either known before the convention, or the voting does not take place at the venue.

In a "one member one vote" system, each party member casts a ballot to elect the leader, and all ballots have equal weight.

The Liberal Party of Canada held the first leadership convention in 1919, electing William Lyon Mackenzie King. Prior to that the leader of the party was chosen by the party's parliamentary caucus. The historical Conservative Party used a leadership convention to select R.B. Bennett as party leader in 1927.

The Parti Québécois was the first political party in Canada to adopt an OMOV system. Most provincial and federal parties adopted forms of OMOV in the 1990s.

Until 2003, when it adopted an OMOV system, every biennial convention of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and its successor, the New Democratic Party, in the twentieth century was a leadership convention. However, in practice, contested elections were only held in the NDP when there was a declared leadership race.

Both the modern Conservative Party and the NDP have instituted "one member one vote" systems in recent years. The NDP has a modified system where the vote is calculated, so that ballots cast by labour delegates have 25% weight in the total result while votes cast by party members have 75%.

The modern Conservative Party has adopted the Progressive Conservative Party system of OMOV, where each riding has equal weight in a point system. The party's other predecessors, the Reform Party of Canada and Canadian Alliance, had pure OMOV systems.

The Liberals continue to use the delegate system, but have adopted a system where delegates in a riding are apportioned by proportional representation.

The Bloc Québécois uses a pure OMOV system.

ee also

Federal parties

*Liberal leadership conventions
*New Democratic Party leadership conventions
*Bloc Québécois leadership elections
*Canadian Alliance leadership elections
*Progressive Conservative leadership conventions
*Conservative Party of Canada leadership election, 2004

Provincial parties

*British Columbia Social Credit Party leadership conventions
*British Columbia Liberal Party leadership conventions
*British Columbia New Democratic Party leadership conventions
*New Democratic Party of Manitoba leadership conventions
*Ontario Liberal leadership conventions
*Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership conventions
*Ontario CCF/NDP leadership conventions
*Saskatchewan New Democratic Party leadership conventions
*Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan leadership conventions

Up-coming conventions/elections

* New Brunswick Progressive Conservative leadership election, 2008
* Alberta Liberal Party leadership election, 2008
* Saskatchewan Liberal Party leadership election, 2008
* Prince Edward Island Progressive Conservative Party leadership election, 2009
* Ontario New Democratic Party leadership election, 2009

Recent federal conventions

Most of the major parties have held conventions recently to choose new leaders:

The new Conservative Party of Canada chose former Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper as its new leader on March 20, 2004. The other candidates were former Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement and former Magna International CEO Belinda Stronach.

The Liberals, on December 2, 2006 chose Stéphane Dion as their next leader at the 2006 Liberal leadership convention.

The New Democratic Party chose Jack Layton as leader on January 25, 2003, in Toronto. His leadership was subject to an automatic review in Quebec City on September 10, 2006 and he was reaffirmed with 92% of the vote.

Related links

* [http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/related/Parties/LeaderConv.asp?lang=E List of Leadership Conventions (Parliament of Canada site)]