¹ For an account of these circumstances see Dawson, Robert MacGregor, William Lyon Mackenzie King: A Political Biography, I, 1872–1923 (Toronto, 1958), 271–85.Google Scholar

² Ferns, H. S. and Ostry, B., The Age of Mackenzie King—The Rise of the Leader (London, Toronto, 1955), 289.Google Scholar

³ For accounts of the convention see Dawson, Mackenzie King, I, 301–8; Ferns and Ostry, Age of King, 311–22, and Lederle, J. W., “The Liberal Convention of 1919 and the Selection of Mackenzie King,” Dalhousie Review, XXVII (1948), 85–92.Google Scholar

⁴ Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs 1927–28, 45–49.

⁵ Reprinted in National Liberal Convention (Ottawa, 1968), a booklet distributed to delegates and guests at Liberal leadership convention, 14–16.

⁶ In a nationally televised press interview the day after the Liberal convention Pierre Elliott Trudeau showed himself willing to continue his former role as educator in constitutional matters by objecting to being called prime minister-designate. Mr. Trudeau pointed out that there was no such office and that the position conferred on him by the convention was that of leader of the Liberal party.

⁷ A Party Politician: The Memoirs of Chubby Power, edited by Ward, Norman (Toronto, 1966), 371–2.Google Scholar

⁸ It is again my guess that this fragmentation at the local level was more pronounced in the Liberal convention than that of the Conservatives, as in the latter regional voting was probably more pronounced.

⁹ The position of J. S. Woodsworth and M. J. Coldwell as leaders of the CCF was a ratification by successive biennial conferences of the party of choices of the parliamentary group. T. C. Douglas was chosen as leader of the NDP by the Founding Convention of the party in 1961 over Hazen Argue, the choice of caucus. At that time the caucus was a small group of eight MPs which was relatively uninfluential in the political movement that was being formed. The federal constitution of the NDP provides that national conventions which are to meet every two years shall elect a leader and that this person shall act as party leader in the House of Commons.

¹⁰ Daniel, Paul T., Goldman, Ralph M., and Bain, Richard C., The Politics of National Party Conventions (Washington DC, 1960), 355.Google Scholar Bloc voting by states seems to be decreasing. It has traditionally been less prevalent among Republicans than Democrats and at the 1968 Democratic convention the unit-rule was successfully attacked.

¹¹ “The Electoral System and the Party System in Canada, 1921–1965,” this Journal, I (March 1968), 55–80.

¹² The number of ballots needed to elect a leader at the ten conventions was as follows: 1919 (Lib.), 3; 1927 (Cons.), 2; 1938 (Cons.), 2; 1942 (Cons.), 2; 1948 (Lib.), 1; 1948 (Cons.), 1; 1956 (Cons.), 1; 1958 (Lib.), 1; 1967 (Cons.), 5; 1968 (Lib.), 4.

¹³ For one of the most interesting accounts of building such a coalition, see White, Theodore H., The Making of the President 1960 (New York, 1961).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Parties and Voting in Canada: The Diefenbaker Interlude (Toronto, 1965), 24 and 68–9.

¹⁵ The most perceptive account of the influence of the mass media on contemporary Canadian politics that I know was in an address by Senator Maurice Lamontagne to the annual conference of the Institute of Public Administration at Hamilton in September 1967. So far as I know, this address has not been published. According to one of Lamontagne's interesting arguments, the mass media “do not have a decisive impact on public opinion, at least in so far as politics is concerned.” However, most politicians are “newsworms” and their perceptions of themselves, their colleagues, and their competitors is deeply influenced by how much and how favourable is their publicity in the media.

¹⁶ According to a report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 14,511,000 people heard or saw part of the seven hours broadcasting of the last day of the Liberal convention of 1968. Of these 13,606,000 had seen television. Le Devoir, March 6, 1968. Although the figures are not directly comparable, it would seem that these figures are similar to those who heard or saw broadcasts of the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960 where estimates of the percentage of the US population of 12 years of age or over who saw or viewed each of the four debates was 60, 62, 64, 54. Kraus, Sidney, ed., The Great Debates, Background, Perspective, Effects (Bloomington, Ind., 1962), 189.Google Scholar

¹⁷ “Is Charisma the Key to Solving the Trudeau Mystery?” Toronto Globe and Mail, Feb. 12, 1968.

¹⁸ “A Conference for Professionals: The P.C.s in Toronto,” Journal of Canadian Studies, 2, no. 4 (Nov. 1967), p. 8.

¹⁹ Lederle, “Liberal Convention of 1919,” 86.

²⁰ “Why Do We Need a Leadership Race?” Vancouver Sun, March 26, 1968.

²¹ “Distinguishing between Political Parties—the Case of Canada,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, no. 1 (Feb. 1965), 73.

²² Parties and Voting in Canada, 6 and 24.

²³ The 1945 general election gave the Liberals 125 of 245 seats; that of 1965, 131 of 265 seats.

²⁴ Lester Pearson took office as minister of External Affairs between the time of the Liberal convention and Mr. St. Laurent's becoming prime minister. In the cabinet of November 15, Stuart Garson, the former premier of Manitoba, assumed Mr. St. Laurent's former portfolio of Justice and Robert Winters became minister of Reconstruction, a portfolio previously held by C. D. Howe who remained as minister of Trade and Commerce. During 1949, St. Laurent made only five cabinet changes, all involving relatively unimportant portfolios (Mines and Resources, Secretary of State, Solicitor General, Postmaster General, and Government Leader in the Senate/Minister without Portfolio). Three of these were made after the decisive election victory of June 25.

²⁵ Of course, this would have been a winter election and this challenged a fundamental Canadian tradition. However, my reading of the situation in 1948 is that politicians and public had not progressed as far as now in perceiving general elections as primarily personal contests between party leaders.

²⁶ In the two recent conventions the provincial Liberal organizations were somewhat more active than the Conservatives: (a) during the campaign period there were four provincial/regional Liberal conferences (Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, Western) where the candidates for the leadership were heard; (b) provincial Liberal associations were directed in conjunction with each federal member or candidate and each riding organization to arrange the date, place, and hour of constituency meetings to choose local delegates to the Liberal convention. See Convention Call.

²⁷ Cf. Engelmann, F. C. and Schwartz, M. A., Political Parties and the Canadian Social Structure (Scarborough, Ont., 1967)Google Scholar, chaps. 1 and 12. I think that the authors used Duverger's classification of cadre parties originating in their government and mass parties originating outside too rigidly. While undoubtedly the Canadian parties owe much to their origins, it seems to me that the authors do not adequately describe or explain the changing relations between extra-parliamentary and parliamentary organs of the Liberals and Conservatives.

²⁸ Among the best of these studies are Land, Brian, Eglinton: The Election Study of a Federal Constituency (Don Mills, Ont., 1965)Google Scholar and essays by Peterson and Avakumovic, Perlin, Lemieux, Davis, and Scarrow in Meisel, John, ed., Papers on the 1962 Election (Toronto, 1965).Google Scholar

²⁹ According to John Meisel, the parties agree that “the basic function of the constituency organization is to select a suitable candidate and get him elected.” This latter is accomplished primarily by making sure that those who are inclined to support the candidate do so rather than by devoting resources to persuade others to support the candidate. The Canadian General Election of 1957 (Toronto, 1962), 81.

³⁰ This assertion is subject to further research. However, there seems to be nothing comparable to, say the Bow Street group among the British Conservatives or the faction in the Labour party of fifteen years ago led by the late Aneurin Bevan. During this decade Walter Gordon has made unsuccessful efforts to establish a relatively stable left-wing group within the federal Liberal party, and he and his supporters would have preferred Jean Marchand as Liberal leader, presumably because this would have unequivocably forced the party leftward. Joseph Wearing suggests that a relatively cohesive group of new Conservatives emerged during the struggles against Mr. Diefenbaker in 1962—63 and the Fredericton “Thinkers'” conference of the latter year. “A Conference for Professionals,” 5–6.

³¹ Peter Regenstreif has provided some interesting information there in a survey of 215 delegates to the 1968 Liberal Convention: 61 per cent thought the tradition of alternation existed, 28 per cent denied that it did, and 11 per cent were undecided. However, 58 per cent of the entire sample felt that the tradition was not a good one. 24 per cent of the English-speaking delegates in the sample favoured the tradition as against 45 per cent of the French. “Changes in Leadership: The Successors to Pearson and Diefenbaker,” paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Calgary, June 6, 1968 (mimeo.)

³² “Recent Changes in Canadian Parties,” in Thorburn, Hugh G., ed., Party Politics in Canada, 2nd ed. (Scarborough, Ont., 1967).Google Scholar

³³ “Conclusion: An Analysis of the National (?) Results,” in Papers on the 1962 Election, 287–8.

³⁴ Dawson, Constitutional Issues in Canada, ibid., 363–8.

³⁵ Ibid., 399.

³⁶ Ibid., 400–1.

³⁷ Ibid., 370–7.

³⁸ Montreal Daily Star, Oct. 10, 12, 1927, quoted in Dawson, Constitutional Issues, 406–7.

³⁹ Reprinted as an appendix to The Liberal Party of Canada, a pamphlet published by the National Liberal Federation of Canada (Ottawa, 1957).

⁴⁰ Norman Ward, “The Liberals in Convention,” in Party Politics in Canada, 96–103.

⁴¹ Meisel, John, “The Formulation of Liberal and Conservative Programmes in the 1957 General Election,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 26 (1960), 567–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴² See Meisel, The Canadian General Election of 1957, 169–72. According to Meisel's account, Mr. Diefenbaker and his advisers had several motivations for this strategy. Some of the policy resolutions were ambiguous as to whether the party wished a means-test for old age pensions and this was attributed by the leader as a link with the “old guard” in the party. Mr. Diefenbaker gained great flexibility and the advantages of more publicity by the piecemeal announcement of policy. This procedure too helped create a “new physiognomy” in which the campaign was linked more closely to the leader than to the Conservative party.

⁴³ With all the controversy engendered at the Conservative convention and elsewhere by the so-called “two-nations” resolution there has been little direct reference to the text of the resolution. What presumably is the contentious clause is an assertion “That Canada is composed of the original inhabitants of this land and the two founding peoples (deux nations) with historic rights, who have been, and continue to be joined by people from many lands.” Chairman's Report, Convention Policy Committee Meetings (mimeo.), 10.

⁴⁴ Ibid., Foreword.

⁴⁵ ibid.

⁴⁶ See Meisel, “The Formulation of Liberal and Conservative Programmes,” and Hodgetts, J. E., “The Liberal and the Bureaucrat,” Queen's Quarterly LXIII, (summer 1955), 176–83.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ The Constitution of the Progressive Conservative Association of Canada provides that the National Association “shall meet normally once in each calendar year.” The executive officers of the party may call a special meeting at any time or postpone the general meeting in any year in which a leadership convention, general election or any other circumstances in their opinion justifies such an action. The constitution of the Liberal Federation of Canada provides that there shall be a convention “at least every two years.”

⁴⁸ Alford, Robert, Party and Society: The Anglo-American Democracies (Chicago, 1963)Google Scholar, particularly chap. 9.

⁴⁹ Cairns, “The Electoral System and the Party System.”

⁵⁰ Dawson, Robert MacGregor, The Government of Canada, 3rd ed. (Toronto, 1957), 497–503.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Scarrow, “Distinguishing between Parties,” 72. Scarrow's article is a lucid analysis of the matter.

⁵² Graham, Roger, Arthur Meighen: A Biography, II, And Fortune Fled (Toronto, 1963), 493–9.Google Scholar

⁵³ Granatstein, J. L., The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada 1939–1945 (Toronto, 1967), 144–7.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Meisel, The Canadian General Election of 1957, 31–3, and Sevigny, Pierre, This Game of Politics (Toronto/Montreal, 1965)Google Scholar, chap. 3.

⁵⁵ A Party Politician, 398.

⁵⁶ Ward, “The Liberals on Convention,” 99–100.

⁵⁷ For an analysis of the processes of co-option in Canadian politics see Porter, John, The Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada (Toronto, 1965), 405–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Porter does not, I think, emphasize enough that co-option to senior political office is a process characteristic of the Liberals rather than the party system as such. The instincts of the CCFNDP are wholly otherwise and, but perhaps to a lesser extent, this is also true of the Tories. When Mr. Diefenbaker was prime minister he showed a propensity for professional politicians both from the House of Commons and the provinces. Only Wallace McCutcheon and the late Sidney Smith were brought into the Diefenbaker government by co-option.

⁵⁸ “Why Do We Need a Leadership Race?”

⁵⁹ The Liberal rules in 1968 required fifty delegate signatures, but these required no explicit or implicit commitment to the candidate, as shown by the placing on the ballot of Lloyd Henderson who did not receive a single vote.

⁶⁰ The Conservatives perpetuated the old rule in 1967 eliminating only the last candidate on each ballot. The Liberal rule in 1968 was some improvement eliminating both the last candidate and any candidate receiving fewer than 50 votes.

⁶¹ The inadequate internal communication in the conventions is very marked. During the voting-period at the Liberal conventions many delegates watched television reports of proceedings oS the convention floor.

⁶² It is generally agreed among observers of the 1967 Conservative convention that the internal management of the Stanfield organization was very effective and that this was a significant element in the Nova Scotia Premier's victory. This was particularly crucial in establishing contact with eliminated candidates and their representatives. Cf. Ballots and Bandwagons, published by the Toronto Telegram, 1967.

⁶³ Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties, trans. Barbara, and North, Robert (New York, 1954), 63–71.Google Scholar See also Engelmann and Schwartz, Political Parties and the Canadian Social Structure.

⁶⁴ The interest generated by the leadership conventions seemed to have carried over into the nominating politics at the local level prior to the 1968 election campaign. Nominations were contested to an unprecedented degree and many more people than ever before attended constituency nominating conventions. I am informed, however, that many of those latter were not available for subsequent chores during the campaign. It also seems true that the increase in nominal membership of the two major parties has not as yet led to them being significantly less financially dependent on corporate contributors.

⁶⁵ I am very grateful to Alan Cairns for suggesting the analysis in this paragraph.

⁶⁶ “Changes in Leadership.”

⁶⁷ “The Rise of Ideology in American Political Parties,” in Wingfield, C. J., ed., Political Science: Some New Perspectives (El Paso, 1966), 73–4.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Cairns, “The Electoral System and the Party System.”