Liberal MP Ralph Goodale said on Twitter that 3,300 people had registered for the LIberal Party of Canada’s biennial convention being held this weekend in Ottawa. For a party that has people writing its obituary, that’s a very good turnout. In fact that easily leads the turnout at political conventions held since the election on May 2, 2011.
The Conservatives had about 2,000 at their convention in Ottawa. The New Democrats drew about 1,500 delegates to Vancouver. And a pathetic “few hundred” showed up in Montreal to crown Daniel Paillé as the new leader of the Bloc Québecois.
Now it’s true that it’s probably easier to get more delegates to Ottawa than to Vancouver simply because Ottawa is closer to more of Canada’s population than Vancouver is.
But a Twitter follower, Joffré Leroux, alertly points out that that each party’s constitution also contributes to the ceiling, if you will, for delegate participation. The constitution for the Liberal party [PDF, p 48] allows for up to 20 delegates per riding; the Conservatives cap it [PDF, p. 6) at 10 delegates per riding. The New Democrats have a little more complicated delegate limit related to the number of members in each EDA. But basically, every NDP EDA gets 1 delegate for the first 50 members of the local EDA and then gets another delegate for every 50 members beyond that.
So Liberals will certainly crow about getting 3,300 out to their convention and they should. They suffered an awful loss in May 2 and this weekend’s attendance is a good turnout.