OTTAWA –
After seven months of campaigning, the Conservative Party of Canada will announce the winner of the 2022 leadership race tonight in Ottawa.
The event is scheduled to begin at 6:00 PM ET, with the first voting results expected to be revealed around 7:30 PM. CTV News Channel will have special live coverage from the floor beginning at 5:30 PM ET
There are five candidates in the race – widely regarded favorite Pierre Poilievre, his Progressive Conservative challenger Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis, Roman Baber and Scott Aitchison – although six names are on the ballot because they were printed before Patrick Brown’s disqualification.
The Conservatives held the election with mail-in ballots, which were due to be handed over to the party from Tuesday.
Ballots began being handed in to the counter on Thursday, with the party keen to avoid a significant delay in announcing results during the 2020 leadership election due to thousands of ballots damaged in the opening. However, the tabulation of results is happening today.
The party is promising a tighter message than originally planned given the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
As the country is in an official period of mourning, the event will begin with a tribute to Her Majesty, the confetti cannons will not be fired and expect to see more black clothing among the crowd of party faithful.
A historic number of ballots were cast in that race after party membership skyrocketed during the campaign. A total of 678,702 party members were eligible to vote, of which 437,854 ballots were received by the deadline.
In total, however, the party leader is determined by 417,987 members, as this is the number of accepted ballots that will be counted and the rest will be rejected due to incomplete ballot packets.
All 338 federal races have 100 points to throw, meaning there will be 33,800 points up for grabs, give or take a few depending on the vetting process. To win, a candidate must receive 50 percent plus one of the points, which would be approximately 16,901, provided there are at least 100 accepted votes cast from that bid.
It is a preferential voting system, so if a candidate does not reach the majority threshold on the first ballot, the candidate with the lowest number of points will be eliminated.
When a candidate drops off the ballot, the votes of the members who ranked him first will be reallocated to those voters’ second choice. That process happens automatically for Brown voters, according to the party. This process will continue until one candidate wins.
One of the main questions heading into tonight is whether one candidate – in particular Poilievre, whose campaign claims to have sold an estimated 300,000 memberships – can make it on the first ballot, a feat last achieved by the former prime minister Stephen Harper in 2004.
In July, Harper endorsed Poilievre, saying in a video posted on Twitter that Poilievre had made the “strongest case” for winning new party members and winning the next general election. Harper did not offer an endorsement to candidates in the previous two leadership races in which Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole took the party’s top job.
The campaign began after O’Toole resigned in February following significant infighting following his failed 2021 federal election campaign. Candidates for the position then had to pay the necessary registration fees and submit signatures from 500 party members in April , to enter the ballot.
The drive then was to sign up members by June and since then it has been about engaging members and ensuring they get out the vote to see their supporters follow through.
The contest – the party’s third in six years – is largely seen as a “battle for the party’s soul”, with many wondering how the winner hopes to bring all its members under one big blue tent.
As a result, the campaign had no shortage of attacks as candidates presented themselves—through rallies and in debates—as the best-placed person to lead.
Attacks during the race were largely traded between Charest and Poilievre, with Charest suggesting his Freedom Convoy opponent was unfit to lead, while Poilievre accused his rival of being a blue-collar liberal.
As ballots began to be cast in the party, prominent conservatives stressed the need for members to unite once the winner is decided and to focus on defeating the Liberals rather than post-leadership unity issues.
“The Conservative Party of Canada – after a very spirited leadership race with very strong opinions expressed – once this new leader is elected … the focus will be on: Who is the leader and the team that can replace the Liberals?” said Conservative Party President Rob Batterson in an interview on CTV’s Q&A on September 4.
The first opportunity, if the winner seizes it, to signal the direction the party is headed and set the tone for his term will come tonight in a speech from the floor of the convention center.
The new leader will lead His Majesty’s loyal opposition just over a week before the start of the autumn sitting of Parliament.
With files from CTV News’ Spencer Van Dyke and Sarah Turnbull
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