Liberal Party of Canada Leadership Election, 2006 - Analysis

Analysis

The unofficial Liberal Party tradition was to alternate between francophone and anglophone leaders, a tradition informally known as alternance. With Stéphane Dion as the only francophone candidate in the current race, however, this tradition would have been broken by the 2006 race if any candidate other than Dion had won. However, the principle of alternance was not widely cited as a specific issue in this leadership campaign — throughout the campaign, Dion was considered an "underdog" candidate with at best an outside chance of emerging as the eventual victor. Although polls consistently showed him as a popular second choice of delegates committed to other candidates, Dion's status as a Quebecer was widely considered a handicap, with conventional wisdom suggesting that the party was unlikely to turn to its third consecutive leader from Quebec.

The party also had another tradition of selecting a leader from among the ministers in the previous leader's Cabinet. Since Mackenzie King succeeded Wilfrid Laurier in 1919, every Liberal leader had served in the previous leader's Cabinet. Laurier himself had served in the Cabinet of Alexander Mackenzie, the first Liberal leader, though the leader who directly preceded Laurier, Edward Blake, never served as prime minister, making him the only historical Liberal leader to date who never served in that capacity. Blake is also the only Liberal leader, other than Mackenzie King, who had never served in the Cabinet of a previous Liberal leader.

As the possibility of a 2006 Liberal leadership convention emerged during the midpoint of the election campaign, most media speculation focused on the surfeit of potential candidates poised to replace Martin. Some optimistically billed this convention as being most likely to provide a broad field of skilled contenders not seen since the 1968 convention that included Pierre Trudeau, Robert Winters, Paul Martin, Sr., John Turner, Joe Greene, Mitchell Sharp and Allan MacEachen. Such speculation seemed rooted in the assumption that high profile members of the Chrétien cabinet that had elected not to challenge the Martin juggernaut in 2003 (most commonly enumerated as John Manley, Allan Rock, Brian Tobin and Martin Cauchon)would return to federal politics, along with 2003 runner-up Sheila Copps and Martin's own presumptive heir Frank McKenna, prompting a balanced matchup between multiple household names.

Instead, all of the above-mentioned politicians indicated they would not be contesting this race. Some commentators have stated that this is because of a prevailing view that the Liberal Party will spend an extended period in opposition so winning the party leadership comes with no certainty of becoming Prime Minister. Also, some say that the reported party debt might also have something to do with them backing down.

There is also the toll politics may take on one's personal life. In his decision not to run, Frank McKenna cited the fact that the prime ministership is a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week job that leaves little time for anything else.

While some view the withdrawal of prominent candidates as indicating that the Liberal leadership is undesirable, others have heralded the potential for a "wide open" leadership race that is free from the baggage of the past that might do much to heal the lingering rifts in the party.

Early in the race the field of declared contenders was often described as having a first tier of six potential winners (the "big six") most commonly cited as consisting of Scott Brison, Stéphane Dion, Ken Dryden, Michael Ignatieff, Gerard Kennedy and Bob Rae. By August 2006 however most news articles cited the top-tier of consisting of only three, or four potential winners most commonly cited as Stéphane Dion, Michael Ignatieff, and Bob Rae, but also occasionally including Gerard Kennedy.

In October 2006, the Toronto Star reported that the campaigns of Gerard Kennedy and Stéphane Dion were holding talks about a potential alliance. The paper speculated that this alliance would be likely to win as their combined delegates would surpass both Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae.

In May 2006, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported that the then-eleven candidates were tested for bilingualism certificates by University of Ottawa professor Hélène Knoerr. Seven received passing scores: Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff both received top scores, while Stéphane Dion (who was tested on his English fluency), Joe Volpe, Martha Hall Findlay, Gerard Kennedy and Maurizio Bevilacqua also were graded as bilingual. (Bevilacqua later dropped out of the race.) The remaining candidates all failed the test, whereby each candidate was asked the same four questions and graded based on their syntax, vocabulary, and grammar. Hedy Fry (who also withdrew) did not finish the interview. The newspaper initially errantly reported that Kennedy and Bevilacqua had failed to meet fluency requirements in French, but later retracted this statement.