Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poalievre is taking part in a debate on the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada in French in Laval, Que. on May 25. Ryan Remiorz / The Canadian Press
After a weekend of conservative leadership campaigns playing “show and tell” with their membership numbers, Jean Charest said there was still a clear path to victory.
But this path is now much, much narrower and twists treacherously through incredible mathematics.
The ranks of the members of the Conservative Party have swelled considerably, according to the campaigns and hints and incitements of party insiders. They may be twice as likely to vote as in any other Conservative leadership race. The total amount is expected to be around 600,000 – an unusually large number.
This is the number that Pierre Poalier’s campaign claims to have signed, 311,958 across the country, including about 25,000 in Quebec, which is the strongest in the race.
If this is true, then Mr Poilievre’s recruits make up approximately half of the party’s members. Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown’s campaign said it had recruited 150,000 people. Mr. Charest’s campaign would not say so, but it is safe to assume that they are fewer.
The large total number of recruits is not a decisive factor in itself. The Conservative leadership race is not determined by the total number of members, but rather by the points awarded in each of Canada’s 338 races, so where you get votes can be as important as how many.
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In the 2020 race, Erin O’Toole won by enrolling a small number of supporters in a large number of competitions in Quebec, where there were not many members.
Mr Charest’s “road to victory” has always depended not only on winning Quebec, but also on accumulating the lion’s share of 7,800 points – about 23 percent of the total – available in the province. Now it seems that this strategy has been broken.
A spokesman for Mr Charest insisted he could still win all 78 rides in Quebec. But even if he does, he will share the points. Poilievre’s campaign claims to have recruited 25,000 members in a province that previously had less than 10,000, so it should easily take away a significant portion of the points in Quebec that Mr Charest relies on.
Mr Poilievre’s huge number of recruits means that, unless they are concentrated in an unusually small number of rides, he is within the reach of gaining the lead in the first round. (Party members will send a preferential ballot by mail, which will allow them to rank up to five.)
It is not cast in stone. Members do not always vote – usually less than two-thirds of them vote. Some who have signed up to support one candidate may switch to another – but usually not enough to turn a tide like this.
Some Conservative MPs seem to think so. On Tuesday, two who backed Mr Brown, Dan Muys and Kyle Seabeck, changed teams to support Mr Poilievre. Mr Moyes tweeted that Mr Poilievre “could unite the Conservatives”, but he certainly seemed to decide that it would be a good idea to unite with the winner.
Mr Brown’s campaign claims to have enrolled a large number of members – 150,000, which would normally be enough to win. Mr Brown won the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives in Ontario in 2015 by appointing a large number of new members, especially from minority communities, and he acknowledged at the beginning of this campaign that he had to win the recruitment battle to win the race for leadership.
My path to victory is to attract new people and have a decent level of support in the party, “he said in a video posted on Facebook in April.
But Mr Poilievre has obviously contributed much more. So Mr. Brown’s path to victory is starting to look pretty rocky.
Its 150,000 new members may still be enough to put Mr Brown second in the first round – so that Mr Charest doesn’t even make it to the final round, against Mr Poilievre.
This may not matter so much. It has always been widely accepted that Mr. Poaliever is the favorite of the existing party membership. He is believed to be much more inclined to get the support of the second election of Social Conservative MP Leslin Lewis, who came in third in 2020. And now Mr Poaliver has apparently recruited more new members than Mr Charest and Mr Mr. Brown put together.
The road to victory seems extremely narrow for anyone whose name is not Poilievre.
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