Talk:2004 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election

Article name
User:GoodDay moved this aricle from "Conservative Party of Canada leadership election, 2004" to "Conservative Party of Canada leadership convention, 2004" without discussion, providing only this explanation in the edit summary: "These political party gatherings for elections of party leaders, are called 'conventions'."

Article moves like this should not be undertaken without discussion.

I disagree with the move, and propose that the article be moved back because the voting was done by party members across the country, and not by delegates at the convention, as the article clearly explains. Previous party leaders were chosen at conventions by delegates elected by party members. The delegates voted as they saw fit by secret ballot. This was an entirely different system from the 2004 leadership election. Ground Zero | t 18:16, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't think anybody would protest the move (I was wrong). It was a leadership convention, weither or not delegates were at the convention. I'm certain that Harper, Clement & Stronach made opening speeches & later Harper made an acceptance speech. GoodDay (talk) 19:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * PS: Who was Harper, Clement & Stronach delivering their speeches to? GoodDay (talk) 19:20, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

It was also a leadership election. Wasn't a leader elected by the party membership at large? Or was that a sideshow to the real event of opening and acceptance (yawn) speeches? What is important to the readers, the party meeting in Toronto, or the fact that Harper was elected leader by the party members across the country. This was a fundamentally different process from the delegated conventions that went before. Very few, if any, voters made their decisions on the convention floor in Toronto, because only a very small portion of the voting members were there. In previous conventions, 100% of the voters were there, and they made decisions about their second, third, fourth and fifth ballots during the convention. This convention was window-dressing -- an attempt to get the sort of media coverage for this much more democratic process that was received by the previous conventions. Ground Zero | t 19:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It still was a leadership convention that was held. The info about Harper being elected is still in the content. You may 'revert' the page move (under WP:BRD), but we need more imput from others. GoodDay (talk) 20:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * And it was still a leadership election. My point is that the election is by far the more relevant part of it, and that this process was different from the previous ones, so it is incorrect to give it the same name just because that's what the previous ones were called. I am more interested in determining what the consensus is than in reverting. If the consensus is to leave it at "convention", then reverting now would be wasted effort. If the consensus is for "election", we can move it after the discussion. Ground Zero | t 20:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I too, will respect whatever the consensus is. GoodDay (talk) 20:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm someone with little or no knowledge of Canadian politics so the first thing I looked for was a reference in the article to this 'convention', but there are none. I then thought the argument could be solved when I saw the see also section linking to Leadership convention. It didn't really help as there are no refs or citations in that article either. There must be a referenced source to this meeting somewhere. What did they themselves call it and what did the reporting media call it? Jack forbes (talk) 00:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * They are typically referred to as conventions. (google news search from 2004ish, as it would relate). I'm with GoodDay on this one, I'm rather surprised that this move is viewed as controversial. Resolute 00:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The only other reference I can see for this is this one  which only refers to it as the party convention. I think the title of the article should reflect the fact it was the first conservative party convention. If not, then the present title seems fine. Jack forbes (talk) 01:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

My suggestion would be that we should have a consistent naming convention (no pun intended) for articles of this type — although the process may change at different times, virtually all party leadership votes can be legitimately called either conventions or elections.

A delegated convention doesn't cease to be an "election" just because the final vote is made by a specific number of delegates in a hockey arena — it's just a proxy election instead of a general one (and by voting on the delegate slates the general membership has still had a vote anyway.) And an OMOV election doesn't cease to be a "convention" just because you don't actually have to be at the hockey arena to vote, because there's still a central gathering where at least some of the party members are in attendance to vote on policy resolutions, get drunk in the candidates' hospitality suites, and on and so forth.

So to my mind, the specific process that any individual leadership race follows doesn't define a distinction whereby some of them are "conventions" and others are "elections" — all leadership races, regardless of format, are simultaneously both of those things, so either word would be perfectly valid for any of them. At least to me, it's less a matter of trying to create a distinction between the two, and more a matter of deciding which one we prefer as a consistent naming choice for all of them. Bearcat (talk) 20:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:British Columbia Liberal Party leadership contest, 2011 which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. 117Avenue (talk) 04:18, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Ages
There is currently a conversation going on here about whether or not candidates' ages should be included. Prcc27🎃 (talk) 04:50, 8 November 2016 (UTC)