In the aftermath of Premier McGuinty’s resignation, the Liberal Party of Ontario has announced that it will be holding a leadership convention on January 25^th-26^th, 2013, to establish which candidate will lead the party into what will almost certainly be a spring election campaign.

To elect their new leader, the Liberals will use a delegated convention: within each riding association, sixteen delegates will be selected from among the broader local membership, combining with a number of automatic delegates including current and former MPP’s, as well as delegates chosen from various student associations.  Numbering an estimated 2,500 in all, these delegates will then be sent to the convention in Toronto, where a one-delegate-one-vote system will be used to determine the new leader from amongst the registered candidates.
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As of the closing of nominations on November 23^rd, there are seven registered leadership candidates: Dr. Eric Hoskins; Gerard Kennedy; Glenn Murray; Sandra Pupatello; Charles Sousa; Kathleen Wynne; and Harinder Takhar.  In order to be declared the winner, a candidate must receive 50% + 1 of all ballots cast.  The balloting will proceed with multiple rounds, if necessary, until a winner is declared. In the event of multiple rounds, which is likely given the number of candidates, the candidate that achieves the fewest votes will be eliminated at the end of each round.
 
At this early stage, speculation among pundits has Pupatello and Wynne as the perceived front-runners; however, in a delegated convention with multiple rounds, anything can happen.  At the last Liberal leadership convention in 1996, Dalton McGuinty finished in fourth place on the first ballot but went on to eventually defeat then favourite Gerard Kennedy on the fifth ballot.  

Recent polling suggests that whichever candidate wins, the Liberal Party will have their work cut out for them.  As of November 2^nd, 308.com, a respected website that produces a weighted average of all major polls, has the provincial Liberals at an all-time low of only 23.6% support.  By contrast, the PC party holds 36.5% support, and the NDP is not far behind at 32.2%. 

History suggests that whoever wins the Liberal leadership should see a bump in the polls due to the public interest generated by both the race itself, as well as by the new face put on the party.  It is likely, then, that these recent polling numbers represent a low-watermark in Liberal support, which should change after the convention.  In any event, Opposition parties would do well not to rest on their laurels; these polling numbers seem to indicate that at the very least, the upcoming election will be a three horse race.

As in any election campaign, the seven leadership candidates will be looking to bolster their support among delegates from across the province at the grassroots level.  It is important for all interested parties to be proactive in seeking out opportunities to engage the respective campaigns to promote new policy ideas prior to the leadership convention.  It is also likely that the policy discussion from this convention will spill over into a possible spring election.  Without the restriction to stick to approved party policy heading into the convention, leadership candidates will seek opportunities to garner delegate support by adopting unique policy positions in their bid to become Premier. Stakeholder groups should seize this opportunity; leadership conventions leading up to elections that could be won by any of the three parties don’t come along all that often.
 
For more information on the leadership candidates please see our report here.