In 2006, the Liberal Party of Canada held a leadership election to choose a successor to outgoing leader Paul Martin. Martin had announced that he would not lead the Liberals into another election, following his party's defeat in the 2006 federal election in Canada. The party's biennial convention, already scheduled to occur from November 29 to December 1, 2006, in Montreal's Palais des congrès, was followed by the party's leadership convention at the same venue occurring December 2 to December 3, 2006.
After four ballots, former cabinet minister and dark horse candidate Stéphane Dion won the leadership on December 2, 2006. As the winner, Dion led the Liberal Party into the 2008 federal election.
This was the only Liberal Party leadership convention in-between 1958 and 2025 in which none of the contenders had previously run for the party's leadership. Michael Ignatieff, who finished as runner-up, would later run again for the party's leadership in 2009 and was elected unopposed, while Martha Hall Findlay, who was eliminated in the first round of this election, ran again in 2013, finishing third.
Parliamentary leadership until the convention
On February 1, 2006, outgoing Prime Minister Paul Martin announced that he would like to continue as leader of the Liberal Party until his successor was chosen but that he would not serve as Leader of the Opposition. Later that day, the Liberal caucus selected Bill Graham, Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and the outgoing Minister of National Defence, as Leader of the Opposition and interim parliamentary leader in the House of Commons. Graham named Lucienne Robillard, member for Westmount—Ville-Marie and the outgoing Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, as his deputy leader. Alberta Senator Dan Hays, outgoing speaker of the Senate of Canada, was chosen as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.
Though Martin initially intended to remain the official leader until the party chose his permanent replacement, the former prime minister announced on March 16, 2006, that his resignation would take effect the following weekend, once the Liberal Party executive set the date of the convention. According to media reports, Martin made his decision to end speculation that he may lead the Liberals into the next election, should the Harper government fall in the following few months.
Bill Graham was given the full-fledged role of interim leader (rather than just interim parliamentary leader) by the National Executive on March 18, 2006. Interim leaders are traditionally expected to be neutral in leadership races and are typically individuals who are not expected to be candidates themselves.
Rules
The date and rules of the convention were decided upon by the Liberal Party National Executive during its meeting on March 18–19, 2006.
The party constitution required that a convention be held within a year of the leader's resignation and that the party's biennial convention be held by March 2007. The leadership convention also served as the party's regular policy convention, so there was debate and voting on policy resolutions and an election for the party's executive.
The process by which the party leader would be chosen involved several thousand delegates, who were elected by riding associations, women's associations, and Young Liberal clubs in proportion to the number of votes they received at a delegate selection meeting of the general membership of that association.
Selection of delegates by riding associations and party clubs occurred on the weekend of September 29 to October 1. Only those who have purchased or renewed their party membership by July 4, 2006, were eligible to vote. Approximately 850 ex officio delegates who automatically gained the right to attend the convention by virtue of being a Liberal member of Parliament, senator, riding association president, past candidate or member of a provincial or territorial association executive board. The Liberal Aboriginal Peoples' Commission was entitled to send a delegation that is in proportion to the percentage of the Canadian population that is Aboriginal. All delegates, except those with ex officio status and those who won election as independent delegates, were bound to a particular candidate on the first ballot, but all delegates were free to vote as they wished on subsequent ballots.
Each candidate had to gather the signatures of at least 300 Liberal Party members, including at least 100 in each of three provinces or territories, and pay a $50,000 fee to enter the contest (down from $75,000 at the previous convention). The spending limit for each campaign was set at $3.4 million, down from $4 million. All of the first $500,000 raised by each candidate was kept by the candidate's campaign, and any amount raised above that figure was subject to a 20% levy by the party. In contrast to the previous campaign when the sale of party memberships was severely restricted, the executive decided to allow party membership to be purchased online.
The Convention Organization Committee and the convention proceedings were co-chaired by Dominic LeBlanc and Tanya Kappo. Steven MacKinnon, the National Director of the party, was the general secretary of the convention.
The deadline for candidates to enter the race was September 30.
The voting was done in two stages on the ballot:
- The top part of the ballot listed the names of each of the leadership candidates; party members could vote for a candidate or remain undeclared.
- The second part of the ballot listed names of prospective delegates who were standing on behalf of the various leadership candidates.
- Riding associations had fourteen delegate positions: four men, four women, two seniors (over age 65) and four youths (under 26).
- Women's clubs had two delegate position each.
- Youth clubs and seniors' clubs each had four delegates, of which two were male and two were female.
Ex officio delegates could automatically attend and vote at the convention without the requirement of getting elected. Ex officio delegates included MPs, senators, riding association presidents, immediate past candidates, and a certain number of party executive members and members of the executive of various Liberal Party Commissions (such as the national youth commission, national women's commission, national Aboriginal commission, etc.) and provincial sections of the federal party as laid out in Section 16(13) of the party constitution.
At the convention, the first ballot by elected delegates was preset according by proportional representation according to the amount of support each leadership candidate received at the delegate selection meeting (the "leadership portion" of the ballot cast at riding association or club meetings), even if the delegate has personally expressed support for another candidate. Ex officio and undeclared delegates could vote however they wish, while declared delegates were compelled to vote for their declared candidate, their only other choice being to abstain from voting on the first round. On the second ballot (which occurred because no leadership candidate received over 50% of the vote on the first ballot), all delegates were free to vote according to their personal preference.
Analysis
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 did not enter the race. Some commentators stated that this was because of a prevailing view that the Liberal Party would spend an extended period in opposition (as opposed to prior conventions where winning the party leadership came with some certainty of becoming Prime Minister). Others suggested reported party debt contributed to decisions to back down. For his part, McKenna cited personal toll of the leadership position as the top reason he did not run. There were conflicting views on whether the widespread reticence signalled that the Liberal leadership is undesirable or that a "wide open" leadership race would free the party from past baggage.
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.
The unofficial Liberal Party tradition was to alternate between francophone and anglophone leaders, a tradition informally known as alternance. This tradition would be broken if any candidate other than Stéphane Dion were to win. However, the alternance principle was not widely cited as a specific campaign issue. In fact, throughout the campaign, Dion was considered an "underdog" candidate among the "top tier" (with Rae and Ignatieff at the very top). 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. However Dion's chances, along with those of Brison, Dryden and Volpe, appeared bolstered by another informal party tradition: Since Mackenzie King succeeded Wilfrid Laurier in 1919, every Liberal leader had served in the previous leader's Cabinet. At that point in time, aside from incumbent Liberal leader Alexander MacKenzie, Edward Blake and Mackenzie King were the only Liberal leaders that had never served in the Cabinet of a previous Liberal leader.
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, most news articles cited the top-tier of consisting of only three, or four potential winners most commonly cited as Dion, Ignatieff and Rae but also occasionally including Kennedy. In October 2006, the Toronto Star reported that Kennedy and Dion's campaigns were holding talks about a potential alliance. The paper speculated (accurately, as it would turn out) that this alliance would be likely to win as their combined delegates would surpass both Ignatieff and Rae.
Opinion polls
According to an opinion poll of Liberal party members by The Globe and Mail, conducted from September 12–18, Michael Ignatieff enjoyed a slim lead over the pack with 19% support. The remaining candidates' support was calculated at: 17% for Bob Rae, 13% for Stéphane Dion, 9% for Gerard Kennedy, 9% for Ken Dryden, 3% for Scott Brison, 2% for Joe Volpe, 1% for Martha Hall Findlay, and less than 1% for Hedy Fry. The poll found that 27% of party members did not know or were undecided about their choice. The poll foretold Ignatieff's potential second-ballot weakness: 12% selected him as their second choice, compared to 23% for Rae and 17% for Dion. However, the poll's accuracy was questioned at the time since it was taken based on membership lists provided by Brison, Dryden and Dion. Still, a poll of Liberal party members in Ontario and Quebec by EKOS Research Associates for the Toronto Star and La Presse, conducted from September 17–24, showed similar results with Rae and Ignatieff supported by 25% each, Dion by 17% and Kennedy by 16%. Rae and Dion again had strong support for second choice at 27% each, compared with 19% for Ignatieff.