Canada: Conservative Party Leadership vote today; electronic preference-based balloting

Politics & Elections
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After he lost the federal election in October 2015, Stephen Harper resigned as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

After a year-long leadership contest, the votes get counted today. Every member of the Party as of May 17 was entitled to vote, on a preferential choice ballot. But, the trick is that the ballots don’t get counted individually, but by the federal electoral constituencies, or ridings. The party association in each riding gets 100 points, which get allocated according to the preferential ballots cast by the member in that riding association. It will likely take several rounds of counting the ballots and re-allocation according to second, third and fourth preferences, with candidates dropping out at each stage.

Counting is all computerized. Since there are 338 ridings, that means that there are 33,800 points up for grabs; winner needs to get 16,900 points.

The reason for the allocation by ridings rather than straight membership is to ensure that the winning candidate has broad support throughout the country, rather than just pulling support from one region. The Conservatives tend to have high membership numbers out west, much lower in Quebec and parts east, but they don’t want the candidate to win based on strong support in just one region.

There are 14 candidates on the ballots, but one dropped out after the deadline, so really just 13. The front-runner is said to be Maxime Bernier from Quebec, but because of the voting method, it’s difficult for pollsters to predict the outcome. A local Saskatchewan MP, Andrew Scheer, former Speaker, is also said to be in the running.

The one who dropped out is Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank/Dragon’s Den, a businessman/Trump wannabe. He dropped out because being unilingual is essentially a disqualification (which I predicted way back in January at post 58 in this thread: Could someone as unqualified as Trump get elected in any other modern, wealthy developed nation?)

Results start to be announced at 5 pm EDT.

Good CBC article on it: 5 things to watch for in today’s Conservative leadership result

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I don’t mind either Bernier or Scheer, although they both have a few policies that I find it very hard to get behind. Overall, I have a strong feeling that in the next election the Conservative Party is going to come out with a social platform that I just won’t be able to support. Plus, I’m likely to vote for Trudeau unless there’s a good reason not to vote for Trudeau (how typically Canadian eh?). As long as it isn’t Leitch. If it is Leitch who wins, then I will be voting Trudeau.

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Wasn’t Bernier a committed Quebec separatist? How will this fly? Has he “recanted” or does he still want Quebec to separate?

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According to the wiki article, he worked for Bernard Landry. He originally said he voted No, but more recently he said he couldn’t remember how he voted but thinks he may have voted Yes, since at the time he was a separatist.

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Here’s a retrospective on the brief run of Kevin O’Leary: In short, he had no idea what he was doing, didn’t really want to win, and if he did was likely not to actually lead. We all dodged a bullet on this, regardless of our political stripe.

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As an elected official, Bernier has never been a separatist. He’s held multiple minister and chairman positions with the Conservatives since then so I would call it a complete non-issue.

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Only 7% between Bernier and Scheer so it isn’t likely to be a Bernier blowout and could get interesting. Glad to see Leitch doing so poorly.

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First round leaders are Bernier, Scheer, O’Toole and Trost:

Conservative leadership wide open after 1st round

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Scheer commented yesterday that he thinks if he’s within single digits of Bernier on the first ballot, he can win it.

Scheer hoping for a come-from-behind win in Conservative race

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And it’s Scheer by a whisker on the 13th ballot - I think 51% to Bernier’s 49%

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Interesting - on the first ballot, Bernier’s own riding of Beauce split 49% for him, 48% for Scheer. If you’re not winning your own riding, you’re in trouble.

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Schemer? Who the hell is Scheer? Honestly he wasn’t anywhere on my radar as a potential leader. I really thought Bernier would manage a strong fiscal conservative platform win. I never had any hope that Chong would pull off an upset.

I wonder what such a close win will mean. Bernier’s solid performance implies a sizable faction inside the party.

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Scheer is well-known out here in Saskatchewan. You should get out more. :wink:

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Back in October 2015, I took the Cub to the local Y on the Thanksgiving weekend for swimming and the climbing structure.

And there was Andrew Scheer with his four kids, doing the same.

In other words, a week before the federal election, he was doing normal “dad” stuff with his family on Thanksgiving. Instead of being out knocking on doors, using all his time until the last minute.

I liked that. :slight_smile:

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I’ll make a point to head west on my next morning jog. Are you up for a Tim’s sometime around October? :slight_smile:

But I do vaguely remember his name but only as one of the Harper 2.0 cohort in the leadership race. A decently focused opposition would be good thing.

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Sure! just send me a pm. South Albert Tim’s, or East No. 1 Tim’s? :stuck_out_tongue:

He was a well-respected Speaker, and the youngest ever.

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Scheer.
I’ll bet he’s got more than a room temperature IQ like our current PM.
If common sense prevails across Canada, we should have new Prime Minister in 2019.

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There’s absolutely zero chance that the Liberals won’t be voted in with a majority in the next election, and probably the one after that too.

Zero chance.

Bookmark this and come back to it in 2019.

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Seems like it. Take a look at Scheer’s numbers in this list of polls:

Among all Canadians, not just Conservative supporters, he had some of the lowest preference numbers. On a par with the flat-out racists and hard core social conservatives who were running.

Also note that these numbers dropped pretty steadily the whole time he was in the poll.

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I agree. I highly suspect the PC will come out with a strong socially conservative platform that will drive away independent voters like me.