Progressive Conservative leadership convention, 1983
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| Progressive Conservative leadership convention, 1983 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | June 11, 1983 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Ottawa, Ontario | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Campaign to replace | Joe Clark | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Won by | Brian Mulroney | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Candidates | 7 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Entrance Fee | C$? | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Spending limit | None | |||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1983 Progressive Conservative leadership convention was held on June 11, 1983 in Ottawa, Ontario to elect a leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. The convention became necessary when Joe Clark, who had been leader of the party since the party's 1976 leadership convention, resigned in the face of only 66.9% of the party supporting his leadership. At the convention, Brian Mulroney was elected leader of the PC Party on the fourth ballot.
At a national convention of the party in Winnipeg in January 1983, 66.9% of the delegates voted against a review of his leadership. Clark stated that the fact that 33.1% supported a review indicated that he did not have sufficient support within the party, and would seek a renewed mandate from the membership through a leadership convention. Many delegates believed that Clark, who had been prime minister of a minority government from June 1979 to February 1980, but who had lost the 1980 election, would be unable to lead the party to victory again.
At the party's 1981 convention, 33.5% of delegated supported a leadership review. The fact that Clark had been able to increase his support among party members by only 0.5% was likely a contirbuting factor to his decision to resign as leader.
- For detailed results, see Progressive Conservative leadership conventions
Contents |
[edit] Candidates
Joe Clark was supported largely by Red Tories and other party members who were opposed to the public attacks on the party leader by others in the party.
Brian Mulroney, who had lost to Clark at the 1976 leadership convention, was the early front-runner to replace Clark. As a businessperson, Mulroney attracted much of the party's right wing who were opposed to the continued leadership of Clark. They considered Clark to be too progressive. Mulroney also attracted party members who believed that the fluently bilingual Quebecer would enable the party to break the Liberal Party's stranglehold on Quebec seats in the House of Commons.
John Crosbie, who had been Clark's Minister of Finance in 1979, was also an attractive candidate for the party's right wing, and attempted to distinguish himself by adopting what he called a continentalist platform, i.e., free trade with the United States of America. Crosbie, an accomplished debater, and known for his sense of humour, ran a strong campaign, but was hobbled by his inability to speak French, and by a political base concentrated in the small province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Michael Wilson, who was a well-respected Bay Street banker and had been Minister of State for International Trade in Clark's government, attacted modest support within his home province of Ontario, and a smattering of support from other provinces. While Tories respected his financial acumen, he was an uninspiring speaker who struggled in French.
David Crombie, the former mayor of Toronto, and another minister in Clark's cabinet, attracted Red Tories who opposed Clark's leadership. Peter Newman said at the convention, "He was a good man in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Peter Pocklington, a mercurial and controversial Alberta businessperson ran a campaign based on strict adherence to the principles of free enterprise, with most of his focus on a flat tax.
John Gamble, the Member of Parliament for York North, a riding north of Toronto managed to attract a small band of supporters with a hard-line right-wing platform. Gamble had been an out-spoken critic of Clark, and had hoped to parlay his role in Clark's downfall into a strong showing at the convention and a role in a future Conservative cabinet.
Neil Fraser managed to get himself and four supporters delegateships to the convention to continue his campaign against the implementation of the metric system in Canada. Fraser's anti-metric campaign was based on the slogan, "Your freedom to measure is a measure of your freedom".
Peter Blaikie, a Montreal lawyer and former party president, had also announced his intention to seek the leadership, but withdrew before the race got underway. Some of his Quebec supporters declared their support for Michael Wilson. Blaikie had also launched a campaign for the leadership in 1976 convention and withdrawn.
Jim Wilson, a Toronto party member, placed full page colour advertisements in the Globe and Mail newspaper announcing his candidacy, but failed to secure enough signatures of party members on his registration papers to be a candidate at the convention.
[edit] The campaign
The campaign was one of the most bitter in Canadian history. The battle for delegates created many strange situations: the Crosbie campaign exploited a loophole in the rules that "student associations" could have delegates by creating over 20 new student associations at Canadian universities. 18 associations were accepted, among the rejected was a Newfoundland Flight school.
Quebec riding associations were especially fierce: delegates were called by rival camps with false meeting information, children were recruited by the Clark and Mulroney camps, and as the icing on the cake, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) report showed a bus full of obviously intoxicated men traveling to vote for Mulroney (One man on the bus said he was voting to "Get rid of Levesque"). After the report aired, Mulroney accused Clark supporters of "beating people over the heads with baseball bats" in Montreal's South Shore, an accusation that was never proven. A meeting between the eight candidates would set stricter rules, but this occurred after the crucial Quebec contests had been decided.
Further controversy erupted when then-CBC reporter Mike Duffy reported in the beginning of May that Mulroney's and 4 other candidates' agents had met to make an "ABC" (Anybody But Clark) strategy for the convention. While Mulroney denied the meeting repeatedly, the other candidates' campaigns admitted to the meeting.
Crosbie was seen by many as a dark horse in the race. Some Crosbie delegates wore buttons that had Clark and Mulroney as fighting hares, with Crosbie as a tortoise sneaking by. Crosbie's campaign hit a major snag, however, when he snapped at a news reporter for again making an issue of his not being bilingual, comparing it to him not speaking German meaning he didn't hate Germans.
Pocklington's campaign was hampered by the fact that his Edmonton Oilers were in the Stanley Cup playoffs. This prompted many trips to Long Island, and he missed several meetings with delegates. He was embarassingly confronted by the Mayor of Belleville, Ontario on the convention floor for missing a meeting.
[edit] The convention
Due to the leak of the "ABC" meeting, it was believed that Clark would have to score very close to 50% on the first ballot in order to regain the leadership. His first ballot vote fell considerably short of that mark, and most believed that the writing was on the wall for Clark at that point. An interesting incident occurred when Crosbie was introduced, as his rented mini-Blimp failed to work properly. The blimp may have been a blessing: most delegates were watching it when Crosbie made a wrong turn on his grand entrance. Pocklington fell far below his predictions of delegates, the only advisor close to predicting his number had jokingly guessed "99", a reference to the jersey number of Oilers' star Wayne Gretzky. He, Gamble, and Frasier all supported Mulroney after the first ballot, with Frasier being automatically taken off the ballot.
Clark's vote numbers fell in the second ballot, with Mulroney pulling closer. Crombie was eliminated, and supported Crosbie. Many Clark delegates were considering switching to Crosbie to hold off Mulroney, however Crosbie's unilingualism and more right-wing economics did not appeal to most of Clark's delegates.
Crosbie was eliminated on third ballot, and did not endorse anyone. Many speculate that this was because the contest was so close, and he did not want to anger one of the potential winners of the race and lose his high stature in the party. Mulroney was elected on the fourth ballot and declared the winner.
| First ballot | Second ballot | Third ballot | Fourth ballot | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | |
| Brian Mulroney | 874 | 29.25% | 1,021 | 34.56% | 1,036 | 35.09% | 1,584 | 54.45% |
| Joe Clark | 1,091 | 36.51% | 1,085 | 36.73% | 1,058 | 35.84% | 1,325 | 45.555 |
| John Crosbie | 639 | 21.39% | 781 | 26.44% | 858 | 29.06% | ||
| David Crombie | 116 | 3.88% | 67 | 2.27% | ||||
| Peter Pocklington | 102 | 3.41% | ||||||
| John Gamble | 17 | 0.57% | ||||||
| Neil Fraser | 5 | 0.17% | ||||||
| Totals | 2,988 | 100.0% | 2,954 | 100.0% | 2,952 | 100.0% | 2,909 | 100.0% |
- Percentages are rounded, so they may not equal 100%.
[edit] Aftermath
The two party conventions in 1983 were very divisive for the PC Party as they set those loyal to the party's leader against those who believed that change was necessary for the party to win. While these divisions were pushed aside by the euphoria over Mulroney's massive victory in the 1984 election, the divisions lingered for many years. Crosbie, Clark, Wilson, and Crombie all gained prominent cabinet positions in Mulroney's government.
