How many leadership "races," dear God?

Kenney: why is this man laughing?

I do try to keep this a blog about historical matters, and most readers are probably long since attuned to my view on party leadership selection. But allow me another kick at the can. It's such a big juicy can at the moment.

Heard the joke about the Liberal-NDP confidence-and-supply agreement that should keep the Liberal government in power until 2025? "Gee, the Conservatives will have time for two or three more leadership races before then."  

It's plausible there could be that many, as long as the federal Tories are agreed that the caucus of MPs can fire their leader but that only an orgy of vote-buying among the mass-membership can give them a new one. It's already reported that in the federal party "race" Pierre Poilievre leads among the mass membership but Jean Charest is preferred by most of the MPs. So that's gonna work out well.

Then there is Alberta. Brian Jean recently won a by-election that returned him to the provincial legislature, with his exclusive platform being a promise to destroy the leader of his own party, Premier Jason Kenney. This seems like a rare outbreak of basic parliamentary democracy in a Canadian political party. In Alberta Kenney apparently lacks the Putinesque power, held by most Canadian party leaders, federal and provincial, simply to disallow the candidacy of or dismiss from caucus any backbencher who might look sideways at him.  

Jean's action would seem to suggest the Alberta Tory caucus believes it sorta-kinda has the same powers the Reform Act revived in the federal Tory caucus. But at the same time Kenney is "fighting for his political life" in a mass party review of his leadership -- aka, the aformentioned vote-buying orgy. So: maybe not?

Then there are the scandals over the corrupt practices that dominated the last Alberta selection, the one that made Kenney leader over Jean. The Calgary Herald speaks discreetly of "concerns about possible rule changes and ballot box shenanigans." Shenanigans sounds like hi-jinks at a St. Patrick's Day booze-up.  But shouldn't observers of Canadian politics agree that vote-buying and vote-selling are always corrupt acts, and that the political parties should not be given a free pass? Bribery and fraud are not removed from the Criminal Code when it is party leadership candidates that indulge in them? 

Two proposed rules:  

a properly functioning parliamentary system requires that party leaders be constantly accountable to the elected representatives of the voters who send them to the legislature;

it is not ethical to either buy or sell a party membership while the leadership of a party is being contested, so long as membership and the opportunity to vote in leadership selections are the same thing.

These complaints apply equally to all Canadian political parties. Somehow the Tories just seem better at making the contradictions glaringly apparent.

Update, same day.  The sleazepipe pours out more than I can keep up with.  Don Braid reports that, sensing he may lose the in-person review in Red Deer on April 9, Premier Kenney has had it re-organized as a mail-in ballot, which is apparently easier to rig. ("This is about political survival. In its interests, Kenney's will was imposed on the party's provincial board.") Paid a big fee and booked a hotel to vote out Jason Kenney? Too bad, suckers. This is how we do things here.

We Canadians look disdainfully at the gerrymandering and vote-rigging that are standard in American elections. Indeed most of that was eliminated from Canadian elections by the Elections Act, 1920.  But why do remain so tolerant of similarly corrupt practices when practised by the political party.  It's serious  -- premiers and prime ministers are formed from these sleazy doings.