Kevin O'Leary, (left) and Maxime Bernier are the two front runners at the moment, but anything can happen at the leadership convention on May 27, 2017 in Toronto.
Photo Credit: CP

Conservative Leadership countdown

The Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership campaign crossed a threshold last night with the end of the membership drive. Any new members signing up today will not be able to vote for a new leader at the convention in Toronto on May 27th, 2017.

Erin O’Toole is the contender with the most caucus support in the Conservative Party’s current leadership race. © Codie McLachlan

The Conservative Party was the ruling party, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, for almost 10 years. They were first elected in February 2006 with one of the smallest minority governments in Canadian history.

“We can have all kinds of surprises because of the rules that are used in selecting the leader”

They increased their seats in the 2008 election although still in a minority, and in 2011 finally achieved a majority government. Following their defeat in October 2015 when the party was reduced to 99 seats, out of 338, Harper stepped down as leader on the evening of the election.

Now there are three front runners, or the most high profile candidates at this point: Maxime Bernier, the most comfortably bilingual with libertarian views, Kevin O’Leary, the outsider with the Trump persona, and Erin O’Toole, the man with the most support in the Conservative caucus.

In the larger Canadian landscape, however, it appears to be a contest between Bernier and O’Leary according to Professor Nelson Wiseman, director of the Canadian Studies program in the Political Science department at the University of Toronto.

He says, however, anything can happen when it comes to the convention and the way the votes can go.

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While Canada has a parliamentary system inherited from Britain, the tradition of leadership conventions was borrowed from the United States. The first one was in 1919.

Wilfred Laurier, the Liberal leader at the time, had died and the party didn’t know what to do, Wiseman says, They held an American style convention to chose the next leader, MacKenzie King, who went on to win several elections.

The victories inspired the rival Conservative party to try the same system in 1927. Until the 1960’s, however, these conventions were dominated by the insiders who got to vote.

In 1967 things changed profoundly with the first televised debates which connected the country to what was developing. And the decision-making was opened to a wider party membership, not just the ex-officio representatives.

“The rules keep changing for every party and every leadership election”

The process has continually been tweaked and finessed, but the last Liberal convention was the first to really take advantage of the digital age by allowing everyone, to have a vote, they didn’t have to be party members, but the connections and social media links created the data bases that could be mined in the future.

As for the current race, Wiseman says Kevin O’Leary, while perhaps the most entertaining, and most familiar with a TV profile Canadians may be acquainted with, is the most-polarizing candidate in the race.

“The challenge to him is, even if he leads on the first ballot, I believe, even with a substantial lead, I don’t think he’s going to get that many second choices, so it’s not good enough to have the most votes, to win on the basis of first-past-the-post, the way, for example, Donald Trump did here in the United States in the primaries.” Wiseman says.

As for Maxime Bernier, Wiseman says he’s been campaigning for the leadership from the time he was first elected as a member of parliament in 2006.

“You know a few years ago he was making speeches to the Calgary Board of Trade, he’s been travelling across the country, it’s been a priority for him, and he hasn’t really hidden it from anybody. So he’s had time to establish an organization.”

Bernier’s added value to the Conservative party are his Quebec roots. The party has always struggled in the officially French-speaking province that holds nearly a quarter of the seats in any federal election.

Wiseman says it’s now a case of wait and see, as most of those in a position to vote, and who will actually vote, have their minds made up.

The convention takes place on May 27th, 2017 in Toronto.

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