The hardest thing for a political party to do is choosing the right leader at the right time.
If it were simple, the federal Liberals would not have burned through two “permanent” leaders, Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, and one interim leader, Bob Rae, before settling on Justin Trudeau. If it were easy, the Conservatives would not be tearing themselves apart in an ugly war to choose their third new leader in seven years, having dumped Andrew Scheer, then Erin O’Toole, after each failed to deliver an election victory.
The parties have themselves to blame. With hundreds of thousands of members and more money in their war chests than they can usefully spend, major federal parties are big business. Comparable enterprises in the real (non-political) world take leadership succession seriously. They plan; they recruit and groom executive talent; they retain headhunters to beat the bushes for potential leaders.
Political parties do it differently. In their campaigns, the choice of a new leader may rank no higher than third in importance, the top priorities being to raise money for the party and to expand its membership and reach.
Would-be candidates for the Conservative Party of Canada leadership this summer were required to submit detailed nomination forms from 500 party members resident in at least 30 electoral districts in seven provinces. (They sold enough memberships – starting at $15 for one year – to help boost the CPC from 113,000 members in February to an estimated 675,000 today, and fattening its war chest by something in the vicinity of $10 million.)
That was just the first hurdle for candidates. They had to pay the party a registration fee of $200,000 and post a “compliance deposit” of $100,000. All contributions they receive are taxed by the party – they call it an administration fee – on a sliding scale of 15 to 25 per cent. All this done, they must pass screening by a nomination committee to eliminate any risk of the leadership falling into unwelcome hands. Then they are allowed to spend up to $7 million apiece on their campaigns until Sept. 10 when a winner is to be declared.
While money is a huge obstacle for candidates of limited means, the voting rules tilt the race the toward the lowest common denomination; the candidate who is the least unacceptable to the most voting members has the best chance of winning – which is how lacklustre Andrew Scheer, a career politician without an inspirational bone in his body, became leader in 2017.
The federal Conservatives are using the same byzantine formula as the Ontario Progressive Conservatives used in their 2018 leadership race. It’s a combination of preferential ballot and a points system that is loaded in favour of small riding associations in areas where party support is thin. Each association, regardless of size, is worth 100 points, meaning the votes of 40 members of an association with 100 members produce the same points (40) as 400 votes from an association with 1,000 members.
Christine Elliott, the former provincial health minister, won that 2018 race. She won the popular vote of party members, and she won in a majority of the 124 riding associations. But Doug Ford won the leadership on points, by winning big in rural and remote associations.
A similar scenario is playing out now in the federal campaign where Pierre Poilievre, the candidate of the radical right, has built an insurmountable lead over five opponents. Like Ford in Ontario, Poilievre has mined the small associations, where he has drawn on support from conservative Christian churches and the anti-abortion crowd. (Although Poilievre says he is personally pro-choice, many social conservatives see him as a faster route to banning abortion and same-sex marriage than Leslyn Lewis, the only leadership candidate who campaigning on pro-life platform.)
The problem with Poilievre is not the same as the problem with Scheer five years ago. Poilievre is in no danger of being labelled a lowest common denominator. The problem is he is too extreme, too nasty, too intolerant to be accepted by mainstream Conservatives, let alone the independent voters or blue Liberals whose votes he would need to win a general election. He can take the leadership without them but not the nation – not as long as he courts favour with the white supremacists, anti-vaxxers, neo-Nazis, hate mongers and other insurrectionists of the so-called “freedom” movement who swarmed Parliament Hill in February to demand for the overthrow of the government and the lynching of the prime minister. They are his base.
The country would never elect a government with a leader like that. If it did, democracy would be doomed in Canada.
Conservatives will face their Armageddon on Sept. 10.
Moderate Tories know that. Most of them are supporting Poilievre’s only credible opponent – Jean Charest, the former federal minister and premier of Quebec. But they have been outnumbered, outmaneuvered and out-manipulated by the hard-right. They watched with dismay on Canada Day as Poilievre doubled down on his endorsement of February’s convoy militants.
To his opponents, Poilievre means disaster for the party and danger for the country. I have an old friend who has been seriously involved at high levels in Tory politics since the days of Robert Stanfield. He is no alarmist “I am scared to death,” he told me.
Marjory LeBreton, the former senator and Mulroney cabinet minister, is as “establishment” as Conservatives come. Everyone knows who she is referring to when she asks: “How earth can we ever be taken seriously when some potential leaders resort to untruths, bullying and generally reprehensible behaviour, calling competitors corrupt, liars or the laughable ‘Liberal’ tag?
The answer, Marjory, is: you won’t be taken seriously.
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens is an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail and Maclean’s. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens40@gmail.com