Every pundit and their sibling will write about the Liberal leadership race over the next few weeks, but few will say what truly needs to be said: it is the wrong way to choose a national party leader.
Each party, as we know them, exists as two discrete parties. Parties exist inside the House of Commons as Parliamentary caucuses which, if large enough, become “recognised parties” and don’t legally require any association with an outside party. The parties as we know them outside the Chamber are fan clubs, complete with fundraising, marketing, and merchandising. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and not a presidential democracy, and it should be the political parties within the House that choose from among their number their own leaders.
Our role as the voting public is to choose our representatives to send to the House, not to choose our Prime Minister. It is to send the best possible representative for our region to Ottawa, to make common cause with the representatives of other communities across the country, and pick a leader for this session from among those who share that cause. It is for the team that has the broadest support in the Chamber to then put together an executive and run the country. It is the power, the obligation, of the caucus to turf a leader that is no longer tenable, and the Chamber as a whole to turf an executive that is no longer tenable and force an election. That is the purpose of confidence votes.
It is not that I do not have an opinion on who should — and should not — be the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada within the present system, and I will no doubt write about that as the candidates enter the race as it exists, regardless of how it should exist. Nor is it that I am so naive as to believe this view of our democracy is ever likely to come to pass. It is that grassroots party members choosing parliamentary leaders does not actually serve to strengthen democracy. It may be counter-intuitive, but it ultimately disenfranchises the voting public.
Who are the people choosing the leader? Anyone who declares themselves to be a member of the party. Liberals used to have to pay a fee to join, but can now simply register as “supporters.” Other parties still charge. Regardless, the people choosing the leader are self-selected members of the public who are not broadly representative, and who are, in doing so, bypassing their own local representatives. Leadership candidates and their organisers and volunteers will try to sell memberships to as many people as possible, and it becomes a contest of national organisation and logistics, rather than a contest of ideas.
When we attended our first caucus meeting after coming to power in 2015, one of the first orders of business was to dispense with the Reform Act, the legal requirement that every caucus decide, in a secret ballot with a reported result, whether to take four specific powers away from the leader of the party. With the vast majority of our caucus being brand-new and most having arrived on the coattails of Justin Trudeau, there wasn’t much in the way of debate. We simply cast it aside without the required votes with a single perfunctory show of hands.
Not surprising; every member of that caucus was there because the leader had signed their nomination papers, permitting them to be a candidate for the Liberal party. And they would need that signature to run again in the subsequent election. It was not likely to have any other outcome. What brand-new MP whose very existence completely depended on the Leader’s blessing would immediately demand to reclaim powers they, for the most part, were not even familiar with as Parliamentary rookies?

Having leaders veto and approve candidates leads to weaker, not stronger, local candidates; no matter their competence, they can never have the autonomy to truly do their jobs. National leaders elected by self-selected party members recruit high profile candidates for specific purposes, but otherwise want demure line-toers who will spread the leader’s message and do the leader’s bidding — and not threaten their standing as the leader. The high profile candidates, for their part, are not any less beholden to the leader. It naturally takes us back to where we are today, where a Prime Minister is departing before the end of his mandate and succession is chaotic and risks being rather short-lived.
Political parties, as we know them today, do not serve the interests of Canadians or democracy. Parties are supposed to be a place where like-minded people get together and solve the problems they have co-identified. They have instead become a place where people get together to become like-minded. The pursuit of power for their team is more important than the pursuit of solutions to the problems that brought them there, and “solving the problems” is no longer a primary driver of their organisations.
The next leader of the Liberal Party should be selected by caucus from among those who have already been selected as representatives by the people, not chosen from at large by the self-selected members of the public we describe as ‘supporters’. It may be bad for the horse-race-bound media, but it would be better for democracy to focus on having the best possible local representatives, and having them come together to form a responsible government.
After the next election, each of the locally elected MPs in the 45th Parliament should organise themselves into caucuses and, again, each choose from amongst themselves a leader.
I wish Democracy Watch had this level of analysis.
They have a campaign to sue to clarify some restrictions on when a PM can prorogue:
https://democracywatch.ca/funds/stop-progrations-and-other-power-abuses-fund/
Unfortunately, so many will claim that shutting down parliament is needed to allow the Liberal Party (the corporate brand fan club) to have a leadership contest, when no such contest should happen. As you say, caucus party leadership should be decided by the caucus, and that doesn't ever require shutting down parliament or having a general election.
I wrote something back in 2020, but it wasn't as well written as what you did:
https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2020/01/should-it-be-easy-to-find-candidates.html
Well done, David! This type of analysis flows from the same perspective on true democracy which first sparked and then consolidated my support for you, irrespective of party labels, and continues to do so. Keep it up!