Frank McKenna had accomplished a lot in his time as Canada's Prime Minister. He had steered Canada through the great recession with minimal damage (although how much credit he should receive for that was a topic of much debate), implemented the Kelowna Accord greatly improving quality of life for many Indigenous Canadians, and had overseen a period of greater national unity than at any point in several decades. And on the political front, McKenna had been a godsend for the Liberal Party, reducing what was supposed to be a long stint in opposition to a mere 18 months based largely off his personal popularity and campaigning skill (though the various missteps of the Harper government had certainly helped) while simultaneously moving the party past the bitter infighting of the past.
Still, McKenna had been in power 7 years, and like any other politician who serves long enough, people were slowly getting tired of him. Sure, people appreciated all he had done for the country, and the man himself was still fairly popular, but he had been in power a long time (the Liberals even more so, having been in power 20 of the last 21 years) and like any government in power that long, incumbency fatigue was building up. The general thought among the public was that though McKenna had done a lot of good, it was simply time for a change. To this end, they began to support the Tories, with the Conservatives moving narrowly ahead in opinion polling in the late months of 2013 (although the Conservatives were hardly giddy, what with how their last spat of promising polling had turned out).
With the Conservatives now leading in polling, and McKenna not getting any more popular (not to mention McKenna's own discontent with the hectic federal political scene and wish to spend more time with his family), the press, always eager for a story, began to speculate if McKenna would resign the leadership and therefore the premiership. The Liberals had no shortage of potential candidates to replace him (some of whom had been organizing for a leadership bid for years), and perhaps with a fresh face in 24 Sussex their fortunes would improve (after all, the last time the Liberals had elected a new leader they were back in government 6 months later). As 2014 dragged on, McKenna did little to dispell this speculation, refusing to answer questions on the matter. Of course, this lack of direct denial only led to more speculation, and soon the question journalists were asking was not if McKenna would resign, but when. Therefore, it was no surprise when McKenna announced at a Press Conference on July 19 that he would be resigning the leadership as soon as the Liberals elected a successor. The race to elect Canada's next Prime Minister was on.
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Shortly after McKenna's resignation, the field began to take shape. The Liberals would end up picking from a slate of candidates consisting of Navdeep Bains, Martha Hall Findlay, Marc Garneau, Siobhan Coady, Gerard Kennedy, Bob Rae, Dominic LeBlanc, Michael Ignatieff, Martin Cauchon, and David McGuinty, with everyone in the field being a member of the cabinet. From the beginning, the contest was an open one, being something of a 4-way race between Kennedy, Rae, Ignatieff, and LeBlanc, with each of the four considered to have an excellent shot at becoming leader, though Rae and Ignatieff were thought to have somewhat better chances than Kennedy and LeBlanc. The irony of Rae and Ignatieff, friends since adolescence, not just competing against each other for the leadership but representing opposite wings of the party (Rae the left, Ignatieff the right) was not lost on either candidate. Indeed, over the course of the campaign, Rae and Ignatieff's friendship slowly began to come apart, and by the date of the convention, personal relations between the two were professional at best.
As the campaign wore on, none of the four leaders were able to pull away, with the race remaining a close contest. Each candidate had somewhat different support bases sure; Kennedy appealing to Western Liberals (being from the West), those who wanted to reform the party's internal structure and anti-poverty activists, LeBlanc to some on the left of the party and the Atlantic Wing of the Party, Ignatieff to the fiscal conservatives and "Blue Liberals" who had supported McKenna and Martin, and Rae to the left of the party and those few who still considered themselves Chrétienities, but all four of the candidates had served in the same cabinet, making it difficult for any one candidate to differentiate themselves above the others. Therefore, much of the attacks levied between the candidates came from before their time in federal politics; Rae and Ignatieff being hit particularly hard, Rae for having been a New Democrat and for his infamous tenure as Premier of Ontario, and Ignatieff for having supported the Iraq War, respectively.
The debates came and went, and while Rae was generally seen as the best performer, they failed to move the needle much, if at all. And so, when the Liberals gathered in Ottawa in April of 2015, the outcome was no more clear than it had been when the race began. It was still an open race, and the nation watched with bated breath as the Liberals began to elect the next Prime Minister.
On the opening ballot, Ignatieff placed first, doing slightly better than expected with 24% support. Rae was close behind him with 21% support, Kennedy was even closer behind Rae, with 19% support, and LeBlanc was the worst places of the Big Four, at only 17% support. No other candidate even reached 6%. On this first ballot, Bains was eliminated and threw his support to LeBlanc, while Martha Hall Findlay and Cauchon, not seeing the point in continuing a doomed effort, withdrew and both threw their support to Rae. On the second ballot, the support of Findlay and Cauchon delegates was enough to put Rae over Ignatieff, and every candidate except McGuinty saw an increase in support from the previous ballot (in Garneau's case, the support of former Cauchon delegates to the only other Quebecer in the race was enough for him to overtake McGuinty), with LeBlanc and Rae enjoying the biggest increases (indeed, LeBlanc's increase in support gave him a significant amount of momentum going into the third ballot). Coady, as the last-placed candidate, was eliminated and endorsed Ignatieff, while McGuinty withdrew and threw his support behind Ignatieff.
The third ballot was the most dramatic of all the ballots. Ignatieff once again placed first thanks in large part to McGuinty's support, and Marc Garneau was eliminated, but that wasn't the part everyone was talking about. No, what everyone was discussing was Kennedy shockingly dropping in support, with some of his delegates moving over to LeBlanc, which, combined with LeBlanc picking up a good amount of support, pushed Kennedy narrowly into fourth. And then, Kennedy did something even more shocking. Despite most analysists insisting that Kennedy had a path to the leadership, he withdrew (but did not endorse any of the remaining candidates). With the Kennedy and Garneau delegates now free (Garneau too having refused to endorse any of the candidates), there was a massive swath of delegates moving around, and few people knew what would happen in the next ballot. As it turned out, the fourth ballot was almost as dramatic as the third, as Ignatieff, Rae, and LeBlanc were in a virtual 3-way tie, with less than 2% separating 1st placed Ignatieff and 3rd placed LeBlanc, and LeBlanc only 0.6% behind Rae (and thus only 0.6% off making the 5th ballot). With LeBlanc not endorsing either candidate and Rae and Ignatieff very close to each other, almost no one knew who would win the leadership in the next round. As it happened, Rae would triumph over his old college roommate, 53%-47%, therefore becoming Canada's next Prime Minister.
It had been a dramatic convention, up there with the PC leadership conventions of 1983 and 1976, one for the history books. But now it was over, the Liberals had their new leader, and now that leader turned to the difficult task of governing (and the possibly even more difficult task of winning the next election).
