First things first. Yes, the Ontario Liberal leadership election held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre this past weekend was a lot more interesting than most experts thought it would be.
With Bonnie Crombie’s campaign team putting out the word that the mayor of Mississauga was close to a first-ballot win, the fact that the contest went three ballots injected some unexpected drama into the proceedings.
As she had raised almost as much money as the other three challengers combined, had endorsements aplenty, and was the undisputed frontrunner from start to finish, it was surprising to see Crombie so narrowly defeat her prime challenger, MP Nate Erskine-Smith, by a score of 53.4 per cent to 46.6 per cent.
But, of course, we don’t really know whether those numbers accurately reflect the relative popularity of the two finalists.
For the first time ever, the Ontario Liberals used a leadership-selection system that’s designed to encourage candidates to campaign in parts of the province where the party is weakest.
Here’s why. Every riding in this contest was worth 100 points. And those points were disbursed to the candidates according to the percentage of the votes they garnered. So if “Candidate A” captured 5,000 out of 10,000 votes in one riding, she notched 50 points (half the 100 points available). But if Candidate B took four out of five votes in another riding where Liberals are an endangered species, he was awarded 80 points, because he took 80 per cent of the votes.
Just play out that scenario over 124 ridings, and you can see how a vastly more popular candidate could lose to a much less popular candidate, but one who scored more points. And, in fact, that’s what happened in March 2018, when Christine Elliott won more votes and more ridings than Doug Ford, but Ford won the Ontario PC election with more points.
So were Crombie and Erskine-Smith really that close in votes? We won’t know until the party releases the riding-by-riding results, which should happen by Tuesday.
But here’s the other issue. At the end of the day, what are leadership elections for? I’d argue they’re about putting on a dramatic television-worthy event for interested citizens to tune into that results in selecting a candidate who can best win an election. They’re about creating some excitement so the average citizen can watch and think, “Wow, that looks fun and interesting. I need to be part of that.”
2023 Ontario Liberal Leadership Election | TVO Today
Most of the time — but admittedly not every time — old-fashioned delegated conventions did that. Delegates got selected in every riding, went to a convention, and, in real time, made decisions about whom to back if their chosen candidate had to drop out of the contest for lack of support.
Think about how much more exciting Saturday’s convention would have been if, after the first ballot, all eyes were on Kingston-and-the-Islands MPP Ted Hsu. As the last-place finisher, Hsu would have had a big decision to make. Would he try to bring his delegate support to Crombie and help put her over the top on the next ballot? Would he join Erskine-Smith to try to stop Crombie? Or would he have tried something more daring, such as backing the third-place candidacy of MP Yasir Naqvi?
(That happened with the federal Liberals in 2006, when the fourth-place candidate, Gerard Kennedy, took a big chunk of his delegates to the third-place candidate, Stéphane Dion, after the first ballot. Dion ended up winning on the fourth ballot over Michael Ignatieff.)
Sadly, none of those dramatics were afoot at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, because everyone had already voted a week earlier. Rather than having an exciting dynamic unfold on the convention floor with the cameras picking it all up for the viewing public, all the action was in locked rooms, away from the prying cameras, as scrutineers re-counted Hsu’s votes and re-apportioned them to the other candidates, based on how Hsu’s supporters had indicated their second-choice support.
Sorry, folks. Doesn’t make for great drama.
The process would have been repeated after the second ballot, when Naqvi was obliged to drop off. Based on his already public alliance with Erskine-Smith, his convention-floor parade to Erskine-Smith would have been a great made-for-television moment, ginning up even more drama. There would have been a ton of speculation as to whether Naqvi could bring enough of his delegates over to Erskine-Smith to push him past Crombie. (That’s exactly what happened in 1983, when Joe Clark led on every ballot except the one that counted; Brian Mulroney won on the fourth and final ballot, after most of kingmaker John Crosbie’s delegates backed the Boy from Baie Comeau rather than the Man from High River.)
I realize I’m beating a dead horse here: basically every political party has now dispensed with delegated conventions in favour of one-member/one-vote ranked balloting with a points system. I accept the argument that, at delegated conventions, party members don’t actually vote for the leader but for delegates who choose the leader. And MPs, MPPs, nominated candidates, riding-association presidents, etc., also automatically got to vote.
Is that elitist? Or is that rewarding the people who actually take the trouble to participate? The Liberals boasted that they’d signed up more than 100,000 members to vote in this contest. And, yet, barely more than 20 per cent of those members voted. If the backbone of your leadership-selection process is democratizing the vote and taking power away from more involved party regulars, doesn’t the lack of participation suggest the vast majority of people don’t care that much about choosing the leader themselves? Maybe we should have left this important choice to the people who actually take the trouble to be involved?
Forgive the rantings of an observer who simply preferred the old way of doing things. But you younger readers — you just don’t know what you’re missing. You just had to be there on December 1, 1996, at Maple Leaf Gardens to watch the drama unfold when, at 4:30 a.m., third-place candidate Joe Cordiano brought 85 per cent of his delegates to Dalton McGuinty rather than to Gerard Kennedy. Or on February 12, 1971, when when the late great Darcy McKeough played kingmaker at 2 a.m., taking enough of his delegates away from Allan Lawrence and toward Bill Davis to make “Brampton Billy” Ontario’s 18th premier. Or on January 26, 2013, when Eric Hoskins and Charles Sousa walked across the convention floor toward Kathleen Wynne, thus ensuring she’d become Ontario’s 25th premier.
I feel sorry for you younger folks. You’ll just never get to experience the thrill of a truly dramatic delegated convention.
This points system not only distorts the vote but also sucks all the excitement out of selecting a new leader.
Actually, it just sucks. Now, get off my lawn.
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