Party Favours: How Federal Election Candidates Are Chosen

More than 99% of the Members of Parliament (MPs) elected to Canada’s Parliament over the last 30 years were elected as representatives of a political party. Therefore, collectively the parties have almost complete control over the pool of people who have the opportunity to serve in Parliament. But how do parties pick who appears on the ballot?

At a quick glance, local party democracy in Canada can appear strong, with grassroots members in each constituency gathering every few years to choose their candidate for the next election. But in recent decades these contests have increasingly come under the control of the central party, and many cases have emerged where nomination meetings appeared to be biased in favour of one candidate or another. In this report, we examine how election candidates for Canada’s five major federal parties were chosen over the last five elections (2004-2015). To do so, we looked at the law governing nomination contests, the parties’ own contest rules, the local contest reports submitted to Elections Canada, and the candidates who actually ran in the federal election. This allows us to uncover how the over 6,600 candidates who stood for election under major political parties ended up on the ballot.  

Parties play a vitally important role in Canadian democracy: they offer Canadians an entry point into the political process, combine diverse policy positions into unified platforms, and select candidates for elections. In the age of social media and 24-hour news cycles, it can be tempting for national parties to operate with little local input to ensure consistent messaging. And there are times, like snap elections, when parties may need to appoint candidates. But open, locally controlled nomination contests can strengthen parties by attracting new members, ensuring candidates have local support, and increasing the public’s confidence in the political system. In contrast, candidates who are appointed or chosen through highly restricted contests owe their position to the central party, potentially reducing their community focus.

‍Key Findings

• Of the more than 6,600 federal candidates captured in the study, only 17% arrived there through a competitive nomination race.
  
  • Parties directly appointed more than 2,700 election candidates with no nomination process at all.
  • Over 70% of the 3,900 nomination contests held had just a single person running.
• Women who ran in nomination contests were just as likely to win as their male competitors — but made up just 28% of nomination contestants.
• Candidates directly appointed by parties were no more reflective of Canada’s gender, ethnic, or Indigenous diversity than those chosen through nomination contests.
• Contests were short, with half lasting just three weeks or less, and over 450 closing in five days or less.
• Contests were unpredictable, with no standardized start or end dates.
• The parties’ rules for nomination contests allow the central parties to decide:
  ‍
  • when contests open and close.
  • who can and can’t run in a contest.
  • whether an incumbent MP can stand again as a candidate without facing a contest.
• Contests lacked transparency — parties have no requirement to release information on how many votes were cast or how many contestants were prevented from running.

About the Samara Centre's Parties Project

This report is the first in a new research series from the Samara Centre for Democracy that specifically examines the work and operation of Canada’s political parties. The Samara Centre has previously touched on parties in our research on Parliament and in our Democracy 360 report cards on the health of Canadian democracy. Through this work, it has become clear that several of the major steps to improving Canadian democracy, such as decentralizing decision-making and improving diversity in politics, can only come through changes by parties themselves.

To that end, the Samara Centre’s Parties Project seeks to improve the public’s understanding of political parties and their role in Canadian politics, increase the transparency of party operations, and identify potential reforms to strengthen parties’ role as open and effective facilitators of civic participation in Canada.