Leadership conventions

In Canadian politics, a leadership convention is held by a political party when the party needs to choose a leader due to a vacancy or a challenge to the incumbent leader.

In Canada, the leader of a party generally remains that party's de facto candidate for Prime Minister until such time as he or she dies, resigns or is dismissed by the party. In the New Democratic Party and some of its provincial branches, the position of party leader was treated as all other positions on the party's executive committee, and open for election at party conventions generally held every two years, although incumbent leaders rarely face more than token opposition.

Usually, an outgoing leader retains the party leadership until their successor is chosen at a leadership convention. However, in some circumstances, such as the death or immediate resignation of a leader, this is not possible, and an interim leader is appointed by the party for the duration of the leadership campaign.

In a few instances where a single leadership candidate has been unopposed by the entry deadline, the leadership convention has instead served as a venue for the membership to ratify the candidate. Even in such situations, however, the convention must still take place before the candidate can assume the formal and permanent leadership of the party, even if they are already serving as the party's interim leader.

Traditionally, each riding association of a party holds a special meeting to elect a fixed number of delegates to represent it at a leadership convention. These meetings would often select "alternate delegates" or "alternates", who would attend the convention, but vote only if one of the delegates from the riding association was unable to attend. In addition, delegates are often selected by the party's youth and women's associations in each riding, and party associations at university and college campuses.

In addition to the elected delegates, a large number of ex officio delegates attend and vote at leadership conventions. These ex officio delegates are automatically entitled to attend by virtue of being an elected member of parliament for that party, a member of an affiliated party in a provincial legislature, a member of the party's national or provincial executive, of the executive of an affiliated women's or youth organization.

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