At the Ontario Liberal AGM last weekend I ran for the Presidency against Kathryn McGarry, and I lost by 776 votes versus 148.
I agree with the central thesis of this article, but something that I argued in my campaign is that leadership reviews are broken processes. There is something puzzling about the fact that the anti-incumbency vote of roughly 40% was about the same for Bonnie and for the Executive Council elections, yet Bonnie feels pressured to resign and the rest of the establishment remains virtually unchanged. We expect Leaders to subject themselves to a veto by a minority of members (in this case a minority of delegates, themselves a minority of the party), to perversely compensate for the transparent lack of competition in leadership reviews.
Obviously leadership reviews should be replaced with leadership contests that automatically re-occur within a specific time window.
I’ve always wondered why Canadian political parties don’t hold riding association primaries like (elbows down-deodorant on?) our neighbo(u?)rs to the south. The present system with the major party leaders approving nominations of candidates ( or even appointing these outright à la Doug Ford in his last election) smacks of elitism, cronyism, at times nepotism, sycophantism, etc what have you. Plus you have parachuting of candidates even when you have riding nominations which is not exactly endearing to local constituents. And if pension qualifications are involved (eg a candidate needs to be nominated and win a second term to get his pension), this certainly gives the leader financial power over the potential candidate. IMHO a primary system gives the candidate much more credibility with his constituents and encourages representing their view as opposed to that of unelected backroom elites.
I realize this will result in extra expense but the boost in the credibility of MPs is well worth it IMHO. Frankly the current system smacks more of the Soviet Union communist party IMHO.
I've come to have a lot more respect for the importance of caucus support after a number of leadership races with frontrunners who lacked that support. Members of caucus know these people better than we do: they've worked with them, they've seen how they really are rather than the curated image projected to the public.
Maxime Bernier talked a good line when he ran for the Conservative leadership, but notably had no support from caucus. When he subsequently went off the rails with his People's Party of Canada, suddenly it became obvious why that was. Allison Redford won the Alberta PC leadership and the premiership without that caucus support. In office, she was a trainwreck who helped end the PC's long dominance of Alberta politics. Looking further afield, there's the example of Jeremy Corbyn's disastrous time at the helm of the UK's Labour Party. Beloved by a critical number of party members with little accountability; despised and eventually deposed by a caucus that knew him and worked with him.
On the other hand, an unruly caucus can be an insuperable challenge for any leader. The populist faction in the Alberta Conservatives took down Jason Kenney and look to be calling the shots for Danielle Smith irrespective of the mismatch between their goals and the majority of the public (or even the party.)
At the Ontario Liberal AGM last weekend I ran for the Presidency against Kathryn McGarry, and I lost by 776 votes versus 148.
I agree with the central thesis of this article, but something that I argued in my campaign is that leadership reviews are broken processes. There is something puzzling about the fact that the anti-incumbency vote of roughly 40% was about the same for Bonnie and for the Executive Council elections, yet Bonnie feels pressured to resign and the rest of the establishment remains virtually unchanged. We expect Leaders to subject themselves to a veto by a minority of members (in this case a minority of delegates, themselves a minority of the party), to perversely compensate for the transparent lack of competition in leadership reviews.
Obviously leadership reviews should be replaced with leadership contests that automatically re-occur within a specific time window.
I’ve always wondered why Canadian political parties don’t hold riding association primaries like (elbows down-deodorant on?) our neighbo(u?)rs to the south. The present system with the major party leaders approving nominations of candidates ( or even appointing these outright à la Doug Ford in his last election) smacks of elitism, cronyism, at times nepotism, sycophantism, etc what have you. Plus you have parachuting of candidates even when you have riding nominations which is not exactly endearing to local constituents. And if pension qualifications are involved (eg a candidate needs to be nominated and win a second term to get his pension), this certainly gives the leader financial power over the potential candidate. IMHO a primary system gives the candidate much more credibility with his constituents and encourages representing their view as opposed to that of unelected backroom elites.
I realize this will result in extra expense but the boost in the credibility of MPs is well worth it IMHO. Frankly the current system smacks more of the Soviet Union communist party IMHO.
I've come to have a lot more respect for the importance of caucus support after a number of leadership races with frontrunners who lacked that support. Members of caucus know these people better than we do: they've worked with them, they've seen how they really are rather than the curated image projected to the public.
Maxime Bernier talked a good line when he ran for the Conservative leadership, but notably had no support from caucus. When he subsequently went off the rails with his People's Party of Canada, suddenly it became obvious why that was. Allison Redford won the Alberta PC leadership and the premiership without that caucus support. In office, she was a trainwreck who helped end the PC's long dominance of Alberta politics. Looking further afield, there's the example of Jeremy Corbyn's disastrous time at the helm of the UK's Labour Party. Beloved by a critical number of party members with little accountability; despised and eventually deposed by a caucus that knew him and worked with him.
On the other hand, an unruly caucus can be an insuperable challenge for any leader. The populist faction in the Alberta Conservatives took down Jason Kenney and look to be calling the shots for Danielle Smith irrespective of the mismatch between their goals and the majority of the public (or even the party.)