The Nomination - A Black Box: Who's in charge?
Based on our interviews, it wasn’t always clear who was in charge of the nomination process and how one candidate was to interact with the others. Few received formal instruction or guidance from their association. Sometimes the association lacked neutrality, working against some candidates in favour of others. “There’s too much power in the hands of the central committee,” one MP said of riding associations. “They try to interfere, get their person nominated, and then they wonder… why people don’t care.” Another remarked, “It’s a legitimate concern that you can stack the deck against one candidate or another.”
In other cases, there appeared to be no governance or oversight at all. In the absence of any local party structures, one candidate set up their own riding association, sold memberships, organized the nomination vote – and won.
It wasn’t just the riding association that could influence a candidate’s fate. In some cases, the leader of the national party intervened, declaring candidates outright or bestowing support on a favoured individual. Sometimes, this was the result of a perceived need to increase ethnic, cultural or gender diversity in the party. While recipients were happy, sometimes such decisions appeared arbitrary and caused bitterness among opponents at the local level. “I don’t think I would have been here today if not for that appointment. I’ve never been a person of means,” admitted one MP who was leader-anointed. “[Yet], that appointment marred a lot of debates and discussions that I was involved in, whether with the media or in community all-candidate debates. The whole business of ‘you were appointed’ came in.”
In other cases, individuals opted to disregard direct orders from federal party headquarters. In one situation, a candidate was told to hold off the nomination bid in a particular riding until further instructed by party leadership. The candidate decided to forge ahead without the party’s consent. “I was pretty desperate… we started setting up memberships while the party was still exploring possible candidates,” said the MP. “I sold enough memberships to scare anyone else off. I didn’t ask permission of [the party leader]. I just did it.”