Michael Chong is truly an honourable member of Parliament, respected and liked on all sides of the House. His Reform Act, introduced as a private member’s bill Tuesday, shows the Conservative backbench is feeling emboldened, if not yet empowered, to challenge a sitting prime minister of its own party.
Chong’s bill would give party caucuses the power to trigger leadership reviews or, as Chong put it in the House, “reinforce caucuses as decision-making bodies.” The bill would also remove a leader’s power to approve candidates at the riding level. So one part of the bill would amend the Parliament Act and another the Elections Act.
But there are two problems with Chong’s proposal on leadership review. First, it would empower the caucus at the expense of party members — parties hold leadership reviews either every two years, or at the first national convention following an election.
Second, caucuses already have the power to oust their leaders, not in law but in the Westminster tradition. It’s been going on for decades.
In the fall of 1966, John Diefenbaker lost his hold on the Conservative caucus and the party itself when Dalton Camp ran for re-election as party president, pledging to organize a leadership convention by the end of 1967. By January 1967, his life unbearable, Dief himself called for a convention, in which he finished fifth.
In 1983, Joe Clark called for a leadership convention after famously saying 66.9 per cent in a leadership review was “not good enough.” But Clark had already lost the caucus — Elmer MacKay had letters from dozens of MPs calling on Clark to step down. At the ensuing leadership convention, Brian Mulroney defeated Clark on the fourth ballot. Mulroney spent a lot of political capital during his nine years in office, but he never lost the caucus. As he often said later: “You can’t lead without the caucus.”
In 2001, after losing the November 2000 election, Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day saw his caucus blow up. Some of the more progressive Alliance members bolted to sit as the Democratic Representative Caucus, and eventually aligned with the Progressive Conservatives.
Some found their way back to the Alliance, but most returned only when Day was succeeded by Stephen Harper at a leadership convention in 2002.
In 2002, Jean Chrétien lost the Liberal caucus on the way to a summer caucus meeting in Chicoutimi. Someone got the bright idea to circulate a loyalty pledge to the leader, and when more than half the Liberal MPs declined to sign, that was all she wrote. Chrétien had already lost the party — the Paul Martin forces were winning everywhere in the run-up to a leadership review scheduled for 2003.
So in the Westminster tradition, caucuses already have all the authority they need to force a change of leadership.
But in Chong’s bill, a leadership review would be triggered by only 15 per cent of a party’s MPs (senators, while members of the Conservative and Liberal caucuses, wouldn’t have a vote). What would the threshold numbers be given today’s party standings in the House? For the Conservatives, with 162 members, 25 MPs signing up for review would result in a full-fledged review. For the NDP, with 100 members, 15 MPs would do it. For the Liberals, with 36 members, six would be enough.
This is something to think about. Should just 15 per cent of a party’s MPs be enough to force a leadership review? It isn’t happening, but in theory, six members of Justin Trudeau’s caucus could force him to a review.
As for a leader no longer signing off on a letter approving candidates at the riding level, this would loosen the grip of the leader and the party machines. But while everyone’s in favour of open nominations, there’s a reason the leader gets the last word — so that electoral-district associations don’t get taken over by fringe movements.
It’s a good debate Chong has started, but there are two sides to it.
L. Ian MacDonald is editor of Policy magazine.
