After a seven-month campaign, the Conservative Party of Canada will announce the winner of the 2022 leadership race tonight in Ottawa. The event is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. ET, with the first voting results expected to be revealed around 7:30 p.m. There are five candidates in the nomination — perceived front-runner Pierre Poilievre, his Progressive Conservative challenger Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis, Roman Baber and Scott Aitchison — though six names have been on the ballot since they were printed before Patrick Brown was disqualified . The Conservatives ran the election using postal ballots that had to be delivered to the party from Tuesday. Ballots began being fed into the counter on Thursday, with the party keen to avoid a major delay in announcing results during the 2020 leadership election due to the damage of thousands of ballots at the opening. However, the sorting of the results is done today. The party is promising a more even announcement than originally planned, given the death of Queen Elizabeth II. As the country is in official mourning, the event will open with a tribute to Her Majesty, the confetti cannons will not be used and we expect to see more black clothing among the crowd of party faithful. A historic number of ballots were cast in this race after party membership soared during the election campaign. A total of 678,702 party members were eligible to vote and of these 437,854 ballots were received by the deadline. But in total the party leader is decided by 417,987 members, as this is the number of accepted ballots that will be counted, with the rest being rejected for incomplete ballot packets. All 338 federal ridings have 100 points to throw, meaning there will be 33,800 points up for grabs, give or take a few depending on the verification process. To win a candidate must receive 50 percent plus one of the points, which would be about 16,901, provided there are at least 100 acceptable votes from that riding. It is a preferential voting system, so if a candidate does not reach the majority threshold on the first ballot, the candidate receiving the lowest number of points will be eliminated. When a candidate is withdrawn from the ballot, the votes from the members who placed them first will be redistributed to those voters’ second choice. That process happens automatically for Brown voters, according to the party. This process will continue until one candidate emerges as a winner. One of the key questions tonight is whether a candidate — specifically Poilievre, whose campaign claimed to have sold about 300,000 memberships — can get it on the first ballot, a feat last accomplished by former prime minister Stephen Harper in 2004. In July, Harper endorsed Poilievre, saying in a video released on Twitter that Poilievre has made the “strongest case” to be able to bring in new members to the party and win the next general election. Harper did not offer nominations in the previous two leadership races that saw Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole take the party’s top job. The campaign was launched when O’Toole stepped down in February after significant infighting in the wake of his unsuccessful 2021 federal election campaign. Candidates for the position then had to pay the necessary registration fees and submit signatures from 500 members of the party in April to get their name on the ballot. Then the push was to sign up members by June, and since then it’s been about getting members involved and making sure they get out the vote to see their supporters follow through. The race — the party’s third in six years — is widely seen as a “battle for the party’s soul” with many asking how the winner hopes to bring all its members under a big blue tent. As a result, the campaign had no shortage of attacks as the candidates emerged – through rallies and on stage debates – as the best person to lead. Attacks throughout the race were largely seen traded between Charest and Poilievre, with Charest suggesting his ‘Freedom Convoy’ supporting opponent was unfit to lead, while Poilievre accused his opponent of being a Liberal with blue clothes. As party ballots began to be cast, prominent Conservatives stressed the need to rally members once a winner is announced and focus on defeating the Liberals rather than post-leadership unity issues. “The Conservative Party of Canada — after a very heated leadership race with a lot of strong opinions expressed — once that new leader is chosen … the focus will be: Who is the leader and the team that can replace the Liberals?” said Conservative Party Chairman Rob Budderson in an interview on CTV’s Question Period on September 4. The first chance, if the winner takes it, to signal the party’s direction and set the tone for his term will come tonight in a speech from the convention center. The new leader will speak at the helm of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition just over a week before the scheduled start of the autumn session of Parliament. With files from CTV News’ Spencer Van Dyk and Sarah Turnbull
