Backgrounder to the Proposed Change to the Leader's Term

History

The Party’s Federal Council decided at its November 2009 in-person meeting to submit a proposal to change the provisions in our Bylaws which proscribe the leader’s term of office.  There was considerable discussion at that and subsequent Federal Council meetings about how best to move forward.  Following a number of decisions made by Federal Council, the Constitution and Bylaws Committee was asked to draft amendments to form the basis of a resolution for consideration by our members.  At its May meeting, Federal Council voted to put forth the Party Leader Term resolution for consideration by the membership (motion G10-c29).

Rationale

There are two significant and compelling reasons to change the current approach of a fixed term for the leader to one that affords the membership the opportunity to trigger the leadership contest.  The first reason is one of political reality; the second is due to conflict with new rules under the Canada Elections Act.

1)  Political Reality:

The Green Party is the only major federal political party to have a fixed term for the leader.  Under the current rules, the Party is obliged to hold a leadership contest every four years. 

The inflexibility of a fixed four year term means a leader's term could end or a leadership contest could be under way when a federal election is imminent or taking place. And the leader, as well as the Party, would be distracted from the Party's primary task of doing well in that federal election and electing Green Party members to Parliament.

This is even more acute in minority government situations, as the government literally could fall at any time and the Party face a general election.

There are very sensible and sound reasons why all the other parties empower their membership to trigger a leadership contest rather than rely on the rigidity of a fixed term.

2) Conflict with Canada Elections Act rules:

The Green Party of Canada has worked for the last twenty two years with a provision for fixed terms for the leader.  In the major overhaul of the Party's Constitution in 2006, sweeping changes were made, including extending the leader's fixed term from two to four years.

Unfortunately, that overhaul failed to take note of the impact of changes brought in by the Chrétien government in 2003.  For the first time a series of financial rules and regulations were applied to a political party’s internal contests for leadership.  Up until 2003, leadership contests were internal matters for political parties and were not governed by the Canada Elections Act.  Donations to leadership candidates were not required to be made public and the level of support provided by party staff and funds to any candidate was not regulated. All that changed in 2003.

These changes had little bearing on our last leadership contest in 2006, as Jim Harris was not seeking another term.  The leadership candidates had to meet rigorous reporting requirements under the new rules, but the contest did not involve a sitting leader seeking re-election.

The 2003 Elections Act rules have significant implications for the Party during a leadership contest when a sitting leader is seeking another term, which do not effect the other parties as they do not have fixed terms for their leaders. 

The 2003 Elections Act rules require that all leadership candidates compete on a level playing field. This means a sitting leader seeking an additional term can not perform their regular duties as leader during a leadership contest.  To ensure a level playing field among leadership candidates, the leader may have to forgo his or her salary, could not work from a Party office, could not appear at Party media events, or be quoted in Party news releases. It would be impractical – if not impossible – for a leader running for re-election to continue performing the role of leader during a leadership contest. 

The Party has reviewed this question with Elections Canada and received independent legal advice that the wise course of action would be for the leader to step down at the commencement of a leadership contest to be replaced by an interim leader. 

If an election were to be called during a leadership contest, our current Bylaws, combined with the new Election Act rules, would mean we could find ourselves in the midst of a federal election campaign with an interim leader, instead of our elected leader as they would have stepped down to seek another term through a leadership contest.  This just wouldn't make any sense to the voting public.  Our reputation as a serious party would be significantly battered, it would be unlikely that we would be included in the election's leader's debates, and undoubtedly our support among voters would plummet.

Some with leadership aspirations have approached Federal Council and urged that a leadership contest not take place prior to the next federal election as such a contest would be prejudicial to their chances. They reason, quite sensibly, that most members will not want to change the leader immediately prior to a federal election campaign.

The current arrangement of fixed leadership terms is unworkable with the 2003 changes to the Canada Elections Act.

The proposed solution:

The proposed solution is to ask the Party's membership to invest itself with the power to trigger a leadership contest through a leadership review vote.  If a leader fails to carry the support of 60% of the membership, a leadership contest is automatically triggered, whether the leader has served for one, two, or four or more years. And a leadership review vote must occur within six months of a Federal General Election.

The leadership review vote allows the membership to hold the leader accountable, with a leadership contest being triggered by you when you are unhappy with the leader’s performance – rather than being chosen by an arbitrarily chosen term.