The era of delegated leadership conventions is coming to an end. Will it be missed?

With the Ontario Liberals' decision to move to a new system of choosing their leaders, the era of delegated conventions in Canada is nearing its end.

After two electoral disappointments, the Ontario Liberals opted to ditch their old way of selecting leaders — where mostly elected delegates had some freedom to make deals and switch support during the convention — to a one-member-one-vote (OMOV) model, where most points are divvied up based on popular support from all provincial Liberals, weighted to constituencies.

The shift is part of a long historical trend and logical flow toward systems that are considered more open, inclusive and democratic, according to John Courtney, professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Saskatchewan.

"The base of democratic theory is the idea of wide participation in open public forum and participation by as many people as possible ... it was just a matter of time until delegated conventions were kind of shunted aside," Courtney said.

It was the federal Liberals who pioneered the basic idea of a leadership convention in 2019, and the same party was the last on the national scene to use a delegated convention model. Their 2009 convention, which acclaimed Michael Ignatieff, was technically held under that system, but you have to go back to 2006 to recall the last true contested convention in federal politics.

Since then there's been a steady stream of parties moving away from the delegated system. The Alberta NDP moved off the delegated convention model in 2014. Their PC counterparts used a delegated model in 2017 — but their UCP successors have a OMOV system. The Newfoundland and Labrador PCs moved to the more open model in 2018.

The Manitoba NDP is perhaps the last major party in Canada that still has a delegate model in their constitution.

The move by the Ontario Liberals was welcomed overwhelmingly by members at its annual general meeting last week, as well as several prospective leadership contestants.

"This party is no longer an exclusive club of very few people. This is a modern, inclusive party," said current federal Liberal MP Yasir Naqvi.

The new system "will be an incredibly powerful way to engage people in the political process," said caucus colleague Nathaniel Erskine-Smith.

While proponents argue that the OMOV system increases the openness and representativeness of the leadership selection process, Courtney warned that the transition involved substantial tradeoffs. Whereas before highly engaged activists drove the party forward between elections and during leadership races, now the leadership process is open to a wider array of less engaged people, he said.

"Anyone can join the party. Anyone can back a candidate and then not bother with the party anymore," Courtney said. "In other words, what you see with one-member-one-vote is very shallow roots in the party."

Courtney noted that past leaders elected under delegate models, such as Brian Mulroney or Jean Chrétien, were able to reap some future advantage from the system.

"They built up coalitions of interest right across the country, and that served them well in the subsequent election because they already had this built-in kind of organizational mechanism out there."