WI: Robert Winters wins the 1968 Canadian Liberal Leadership Convention?

[FlyingSquirrel]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Liberal_Party_of_Canada_leadership_election

From this description, Robert Winters sounds like he was even more right-wing than what I've understood as the "business Liberal" faction. If he had actually won this leadership election, would he have pulled the entire party further to the right, or was the left wing strong enough internally that they'd have forced him to compromise? And if the Liberals had become more of a traditional centre-right party, would that have opened the door for the "Red Tories" to make a play for the centre-left and/or for a surge in NDP support?

 

[CanadianTory]

I’ve dabbled with this idea before, because there are a lot of directions to take it.

First off, it certainly improves Bob Stanfield’s chances at becoming Prime Minister in 1968. It could even help elect a few of his star Quebec candidates, providing him some more support against the Diefenbaker Acolytes like Horner. The Tories putting up a non-Quebecer is expected, but with the selection of a conservative-leaning Ontarian, the Liberals have broken their rule of alternating between French and English leaders. Which brings me to my next point...

The NDP could be the biggest beneficiaries. Polls before Pearson announced his retirement had the party on the Liberals heals, possibly overtaking them as voters second choice. Quebec is yearning for a left leaning intellectual, and would be willing to support Tommy and his own string of star candidates in the province, including a highly accomplished lawyer running in Montreal who could replace him as leader.

Essentially what you could see is the 2011 election occur a few decades earlier. Tories win with a comfortable but not overly large majority, the NDP come second, and the Liberals fall to third. If Prime Minister Winters dies during the campaign, honestly all bets are off and anything could happen.

 

[True Grit]

I’ve dabbled with this idea before, because there are a lot of directions to take it.

First off, it certainly improves Bob Stanfield’s chances at becoming Prime Minister in 1968. It could even help elect a few of his star Quebec candidates, providing him some more support against the Diefenbaker Acolytes like Horner. The Tories putting up a non-Quebecer is expected, but with the selection of a conservative-leaning Ontarian, the Liberals have broken their rule of alternating between French and English leaders. Which brings me to my next point...

The NDP could be the biggest beneficiaries. Polls before Pearson announced his retirement had the party on the Liberals heals, possibly overtaking them as voters second choice. Quebec is yearning for a left leaning intellectual, and would be willing to support Tommy and his own string of star candidates in the province, including a highly accomplished lawyer running in Montreal who could replace him as leader.

Essentially what you could see is the 2011 election occur a few decades earlier. Tories win with a comfortable but not overly large majority, the NDP come second, and the Liberals fall to third. If Prime Minister Winters dies during the campaign, honestly all bets are off and anything could happen.

For the most part I’d agree with this - without Trudeau’s popularity Stanfield’s odds definitely improve and with the Liberals having a centre-right leader the NDP will be in a better position - but I’m not particularly sold on the Liberals falling to third.

They’re still going to have Quebec solidly in their corner (though yes the PCs would make gains - I’m skeptical about the NDP but that’s possible too), for one thing, but beyond that I’m skeptical of the polls that showed the NDP in second actually being replicated in an election (it’s also worth noting that a bunch of those polls had the PCs in third as opposed to the Liberals). I think it was more a matter of dissatisfaction with Diefenbaker/Pearson, and the NDP would’ve returned to typical levels regardless of who succeeded Pearson.