By Andrew Thomson | UPDATED August 2, 2022 12:40pmET
Nearly 679,000 people are eligible members for the Conservative Party of Canada's leadership vote, according to party officials.
Ontario has 43.6% of the membership (compared to 35.6% of the voting points) based on 295,815 members.
Alberta has the second-highest national share of members at 19.4% (versus 10.1% of points).
Pierre Poilievre’s campaign had claimed more than 300,000 members alone ahead of June’s membership deadline, while Patrick Brown’s camp claimed 150,000 members.
And Jean Charest’s Twitter account claimed his campaign had “the points needed to win” based on “tens of thousands of new members” and re-engagement with “thousands of past members.” Another Charest post pointed specifically to “Atlantic Canada, Vancouver, Calgary, Rural New Brunswick, urban Ontario, and Quebec.”
Conservative party president Rob Batherson had said to expect a record-setting number when he appeared on PrimeTime Politics in early June.
Eligible voters must have been Conservative party members in good standing as of June 3.
More than 250,000 people have been eligible to vote in all three previous leadership votes. The actual turnout: 37% (2004), 55% (2017), and 65% (2020).
Ballots (along with declaration forms and proof of ID) must be received by Sept. 6 to be eligible for counting.
WATCH: CPAC's Andrew Thomson explains the voting process for the Conservative Party of Canada's 2022 leadership race -- and a change to how the points are determined across all 338 federal ridings.
Equality of ridings, not equality of individual votes.
The concept was vital to the very creation of the Conservative Party of Canada, with Progressive Conservatives insisting on regional balance in the first leadership race to counteract a larger Canadian Alliance membership.
"Had we not insisted on that, and had (Stephen) Harper not agreed, I wouldn’t be standing here today,” said Peter MacKay, the last Progressive Conservative leader, at the special meeting for members to vote on the merger.
Each riding association would be worth 100 points in determining the winner, whether there were 50 votes cast or 500.
(Progressive Conservatives used the same system to elect Joe Clark in 1998. As did the federal Liberals when Justin Trudeau won that party’s leadership in 2013.)
Harper would take the leadership in 2004 with 56% of the points – even though he had 69% of individual votes across Canada.
Andrew Scheer followed under the same system in 2017. As did Erin O'Toole, who became the third leader of the Conservative Party of Canada by defeating Peter MacKay on the third ballot in August 2020.
(The results were delayed several hours by technical delays in counting the ballots. In-person voting was scrapped in favour of mail-in ballots because of COVID-19.)
Two years ago Foothills, Alta. had nearly 2,100 votes tallied in the first round. Brome--Missisquoi, Que. had 28. Both ridings carried the same weight in determining the eventual winner.
Quebec ridings provided 4% of the overall national vote but 23% of the points. Alberta had nearly one-quarter of the ballot but 10% of the points. That meant O’Toole garnered the same amount of points by winning 4,200 votes across Quebec compared to 38,000 in Alberta and British Columbia.
Meanwhile, Leslyn Lewis had the most second-round votes. But when the points were calculated evenly across all 338 ridings, she finished behind both O’Toole and MacKay.
Now there is a change to the leadership selection process, following the 2021 virtual Conservative convention.
The party constitution will allocate each riding 100 points OR 1 point per vote – whichever number is less – to prevent smaller riding associations from having outsized influence in the voting process.
More than 50 ridings had fewer than 100 votes in the 2020 leadership race. Most were in Quebec.
Under the new system those ridings would have been weighed, on average, closer to 63 points instead of 100.
Read the official rules (Conservative Party of Canada)
The representation issue has percolated since the founding Conservative convention in 2005.
On one side were advocates for more individual voter equality, with more power to ridings with the biggest membership lists and a move closer to a one-member one-vote system.
Opposing them were those wanting to keep geographic and regional parity.
MacKay called the plan a betrayal of the merger, telling CPAC at the Montreal convention it was a “stepping-off point” for he and other former Progressive Conservatives.
Ontario MP Scott Reid, a former Canadian Alliance member, supported a proposal to change representation at conventions. Ridings with more than 100 members could send a maximum of 10 delegates. Smaller ridings would send one delegate for each 10 members.
Larger riding associations, mostly in the west and Ontario, would benefit more compared to those in Atlantic Canada and Quebec.
Reid was booed on the floor when speaking in favour. Delegates ultimately rejected the plan.
Another attempt in 2008 to reward larger riding associations with more delegates failed.
At the 2011 convention, Reid brought forward an ultimately unsuccessful plan to give greater clout in leadership votes to riding associations with more members.
Similar amendments failed at the 2016 and 2018 conventions, including a push for a pure one-member, one-vote system.
THE BALLOT
Members will again use a single secret ballot to rank their preferred candidates.
Points are assigned based on a candidate’s percentage in each federal riding. A majority of points nationwide is required to declare a new leader.
If no winner emerges in the first round, the lowest candidate is dropped and the second preferences on their ballots are reassigned to the remaining candidates. The process repeats in subsequent rounds until a winner emerges.
