Editing Leadership convention (section)

== Overview ==

In [[Canada]], leaders of a party generally remain that party's ''de facto'' candidate for [[Prime Minister of Canada|Prime Minister]] until they die, resign, or are dismissed by the party. In the federal [[New Democratic Party (Canada)|New Democratic Party]] (NDP) and some provincial NDPs, the position of party leader was treated as all other positions on the party's executive committee, and open for election at party conventions generally held every two years although incumbent leaders rarely face more than token opposition.

Usually, outgoing leaders of a Canadian political party remain as leaders until their successor is chosen at a leadership convention. However, in some circumstances, such as the death or immediate resignation of a leader, that is not possible, and an [[Interim leader (Canada)|interim leader]] is appointed by the party for the duration of the leadership campaign.

In a few instances where a single leadership candidate has been unopposed by the entry deadline, the leadership convention has instead served as a venue for the membership to [[ratification|ratify]] the candidate. Even in such situations, however, the convention must still take place before the candidate can assume the formal and permanent leadership of the party, even if they are already serving as the party's interim leader.

Traditionally, each [[riding association]] of a party holds a special meeting to elect a fixed number of delegates to represent it at a leadership convention. These meetings would often select "alternate delegates" or "alternates", who would attend the convention but vote only if one of the delegates from the riding association was unable to attend. In addition, delegates are often selected by the party's youth and women's associations in each riding, and party associations at university and college campuses.

In addition to the elected delegates, a large number of ''ex officio'' delegates attend and vote at leadership conventions. These ''ex officio'' delegates are automatically entitled to attend by virtue of being an elected member of parliament for that party, a member of an affiliated party in a provincial legislature, a member of the party's national or provincial executive, of the executive of an affiliated women's or youth organization.

Because of the implementation of "[[one member one vote]]" (OMOV) systems and proportional delegate elections by most parties, conventions have declined in importance. In recent years, the result of the vote is either known before the convention, or the voting does not take place at the venue.

In a pure "one-member one-vote" system, each party member casts a ballot to elect the leader, and all ballots have equal weight. Modified OMOV systems may allow all members to vote but may weight the votes differently in order to ensure equality among ridings regardless of party membership or to guarantee a proportion of the vote to historically important constituencies (such as labour in the case of the NDP).

The [[Liberal Party of Canada]] held the first leadership convention in 1919, electing [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]]. Prior to that the leader of the party was chosen by the party's parliamentary [[caucus]]. The historical [[Conservative Party of Canada (historical)|Conservative Party]] used a leadership convention to select [[R.B. Bennett]] as party leader in 1927.

The [[Parti Québécois]] was the first political party in Canada to adopt an OMOV system. Most provincial and federal parties adopted forms of OMOV in the 1990s.

Until 2003, when it adopted an OMOV system, every biennial convention of the [[Co-operative Commonwealth Federation]] and of  its successor, the New Democratic Party, in the twentieth century was a leadership convention. However, in practice, contested elections were only held in the NDP when there was a declared leadership race.

Both the modern [[Conservative Party of Canada|Conservative Party]] and the NDP have instituted "one-member one-vote" systems in recent years. In 2003, the federal NDP used a modified system where the vote was calculated so that ballots cast by labour delegates had 25% weight in the total result while votes cast by party members had 75%. While this modification is still used by some provincial sections of the NDP, the federal NDP now uses a pure OMOV process without a carve-out for labour affiliates.

In 2004, the modern Conservative Party adopted the [[Progressive Conservative Party of Canada|Progressive Conservative Party]] system of OMOV, where each [[electoral district (Canada)|riding]] had equal weight in a point system, with each riding being assigned 100 points, regardless of the number of votes cast in that riding. The party's other predecessors, the [[Reform Party of Canada]] and [[Canadian Alliance]], had pure OMOV systems. In 2021, the party constitution was amended to award one point per vote cast in a riding, up to a maximum of 100 points. 

The Liberals were the last federal party to select their leaders using delegated conventions, though more recent Liberal conventions used a system where delegates in a riding were apportioned by [[proportional representation]]. In 2009 the Liberal Party approved a constitutional amendment requiring future leadership elections to be conducted using a modified OMOV system in which each riding is accorded equal weight. The [[Liberal Party of Canada leadership convention, 2009|2009 convention]] that ratified [[Michael Ignatieff]]'s leadership was conducted under the old rules. The last delegated Liberal convention to feature a contested race was the [[Liberal Party of Canada leadership convention, 2006|2006 convention]] that chose [[Stéphane Dion]].

The [[Bloc Québécois]] has used a pure OMOV system since 1997.