In my last couple of columns, I’ve written about the state of different levels of government across Canada. But, following the now complete Conservative Party of Canada leadership race, there is still one trend which surprises me. A few political party races seem to be either moving at a snail’s pace or garnering very little fanfare or interest.
I’ll start with the currently open job for the next Ontario provincial Liberal leader. Steven Del Duca resigned from this position in early June, and now, currently, in September, the party does not even have a date for the leadership convention or race. After a second straight disastrous election for the party, you’d think they’d want to move forward quickly, in order to have a greater amount of time to gain back support before the next provincial election and to have a full-time leader in place to challenge the current ruling party.
The Ontario NDP seems to have a bit of a different problem. They have announced a timeline for electing a new leader, which is the first week of March 2023. However, since the announcement of the next leadership race, there have been no announcements of interested candidates, as yet, to replace Andrea Horwath. To put this in perspective, in the federal Conservative leadership race, it took just three days from the removal of the previous leader for the first candidate to be announced.
The last political party vacancy is at the federal level, the leadership of the Green Party of Canada. This race is to replace Annamie Paul, who resigned following the 2021 federal election. With only a couple of months before the next leader is named, this race has caused very little, in the way of buzz, and generated very few high-profile candidates for the job. With the environment increasingly becoming a topic of high interest in election debates at every level of government, this party needs a leader who can capitalize on this trend and create more excitement and interest in the party.
If any of these parties want to contend with being leaders of the province or country in the near future, their leadership races need to be the first step to reviving their brands.