End of Era: Could Saturday be the last delegate convention in Canadian history?

Could Saturday be the last time we see a brokered delegate convention in Canada? Saturday’s Ontario Liberal Leadership Convention will not only be the end of Dalton McGuinty’s sixteen years of leadership, nine of which were spent as Premier, but could also be the last brokered delegate convention we see in Canada for some time. Almost all political parties have moved to a one member one vote system, a concept rejected by the Ontario Liberal Party in the 90’s when it decided the format to choose the successor to David Peterson. Their compromise was a new delegate brokered convention where member’s where asked to vote for the leadership candidate of their choice, and then choose the delegates they wished to attend the convention on a separate portion of the ballot. The Liberal Party of Canada soon adopted the same system and used in their 2003 and 2006 leadership races. In 2009 the party voted to move to the one member one vote system, which they will be using to choose their next leader in 2013. Needing to inject some energy into their party the Progressive Conservatives decided to move from one member on to vote back to a delegate convention in 2002 to choose the successor to Joe Clark, which created one of the most controversial moments in Canadian history when Stephen Orchard wrote on a napkin a list of demands to Peter MacKay to send his delegates to him, one of which was that there would be no merger with the then Canadian Alliance. Less then six months later MacKay broke that promise and the party merged with Stephen Harper’s Canadian Alliance. This brings us to perhaps to the saddest anecdote regarding the death of this phenomenon. Delegate conventions make for great television and provide us with historic moments that shape our country’s history. The 2008 Democratic nomination taught us that baring major rule changes to the primary system, we will never see a brokered convention in the United States. With Clinton and Obama dragging the race into the summer several weeks before the convention, not only did it look like the Democrats would not know the winner until they got to Denver, but it may be a multi ballot convention, their first since 1952. That was not the case as the so called “super delegates” count on endorsements gave Obama a slim victory and the nomination. The convention did provide a dramatic when Clinton in a sign of party unity herself moved on the convention floor that the roll call be interrupted and that Obama be nominated by unanimous consent. Otherwise the 2008 Democratic Convention was like any other modern convention, a bloated rally of speeches, loud music and balloons that don’t quite drop on time. In Canada we don’t have such events. In 1967 the Progressive Conservative Party filed into Maple Leaf Gardens for a multi ballot brokered convention that choose Robert Stanfield as its new leader. The Liberal Party of Canada followed suit with their own made for television spectacle when they choose Pierre Trudeau in the Ottawa Civic Centre, officially ushering in the era of the modern brokered convention. Then the fun began. Stanfield would stick around for three elections before resigning in 1975. The PC’s limped into the Ottawa Civic Centre in 1976 with no shortage of shenanigans. We would be introduced to the term “Flora Syndrome” supposed front runner, Flora MacDonald finished a disappointing fourth on the first ballot despite being perceived as potentially finishing either first or second. Observers even noticed that t-shirts and buttons being worn by delegates grossly outnumbered her first ballot support. MacDonald would move her delegates to third place finisher, Joe Clark who would go onto to be everybody’s second choice and win the convention on the final ballot. This convention also marked the emergence of video technology along with more cameras in the hall. The biggest innovation introduced during this convention was the close up split screen showing each candidate’s physical reaction to the results of the ballot, a practice continued to this day. One side of the screen showed the winner and the other showed the loser, kind of like the Oscars. Previous conventions had used this technology, including the NDP convention a year earlier, but the PC’s where the official opposition to the new system was on display on its largest stage. The Progressive Conservatives would be back at it again in 1983. With a huge lead in the polls and destined to form the next government, Joe Clark felt that his 67 percent endorsement from the party wasn’t enough and decided to seek a new mandate from his party. He didn’t get it. Instead a gang up awarded the convention to Brian Mulroney. Like in 1968, the Liberals followed suit with their own convention. This one choose John Turner over future Prime Minister, Jean Chretien. Unlike the PCs a year earlier, this wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Turner had been the party’s establishment’s choice to replace Pierre Trudeau for some time now. Chretien would get his redemption six years later in Calgary with a lopsided victory reminiscent of an American style convention in which to the victor was long predetermined beforehand. Chretien’s landside victory, including sweeping the entire province of Newfoundland began to raise doubts about the delegate convention being controlled by money and backroom players. The Parti Quebecois in Quebec decided to go with the one member one vote system to elect the successor to Rene Leveque in 1985. The Ontario Progressive Conservatives exhausted and broke from two delegate conventions in one calendar year decided to adopt the one member one vote when they choose Mike Harris in 1990. Rise of the populist Reform Party in the west also showed that the country and more and provincial parties switching to membership vote, the delegate convention was dying a slow death. All of these factors were considered when the Ontario Liberal Party decided how they were going to choose the successor to David Peterson. The party decided to keep the delegate system with a new twist. This played out in Hamilton in 1992 and Toronto in 1996 as the party went through several ballots, deal making and weary convention attendees to choose Lynne McLeod and Dalton McGuinty during those respective meetings. The Liberals also adopted this system when it came to choosing Jean Chretien’s successor and used it again in 2006 when it choose its new leader. By 2006 the Liberal Party of Canada and Ontario were almost the last political parties to not be a membership vote. It is almost safe to say that Saturday’s convention will be a made for tv multiple ballot affair. Under the lights of the old Maple Leaf Gardens the next premier of Canada’s largest province will be broadcast on various cable stations so the home audience can see one last glimpse of a delegate brokered convention in Canadian politics. Attempts to make the one member one vote system television friendly have proven to be disasters, especially by the NDP in 2012, when the results were already predetermined and the party decided to go ahead with multiple ballots causing delay and anger on all sides. The Ontario Liberal Party hasn’t switched to the one member system yet, and it will probably be on the agenda the next its constitution is up for amendment. The Liberal Party of Canada is in the midst of its first one member system leadership since adopting it in 2009, so divine wisdom would predict that the Ontario Party will do the same. If it does, Saturday’s proceedings could be the last we ever see in this country for some time to come.

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