29 Years Later

Ottawa's Coliseum management is more familiar with agricultural fairs than with political conventions, but it hoped to be ready for the Liberals on Aug. 5. Stocky James Gordon Fogo, president of the National Liberal Federation, was equally hopeful of being ready and, after a 29-year lapse, equally unfamiliar with the problems of a national convention.

Fogo, a Halifax lawyer, Nova Scotia-born-&-bred, is a man without political ambitions for himself, a reliable worker behind the scenes, whose political gift is to stop bootless quarreling and secure quiet settlements. Liberals expect him to make a good convention co-chairman (French-Canadian cochairman, Joseph Blanchette). But since he was only 23 when the last Liberal convention was held, he has a bit to learn about the procedure.

The first fact about the Liberal convention is that there will be 1,299 delegates (three party members from each of the country's 245 ridings, named at local conventions); all the Liberal M.P.s; all Liberal candidates defeated in the last federal election; the Liberal Senators; delegates representing the Liberal parties in the provincial legislatures; the Liberal Women's Federation; the Liberal clubs in Canadian universities--and possibly a delegation from Canada's tenth province-to-be, Newfoundland, which last week voted to become part of Canada.

Except for the end result--a platform and a party leader for the next election--the convention will bear little resemblance to U.S. national party meetings. There will be no public gallery, no bands, no dancing girls, no door prizes, no keynote speech, no nominating speeches and, if Chairman Fogo has his way, no demonstrations. Nominations will be opened as soon as the three-day convention starts--by submission in writing to the chairman. Any two delegates in the hall may nominate a candidate.

At the afternoon session on the convention's last day, after the party's platform has been drawn up, Gordon Fogo will read the names of the nominees to the convention. He hopes to read the names fast enough to block any unseemly demonstration. Says Fogo in a political paraphrase of a classic line: "In my job you have to be like Caesar's wife, playing no favorites."

Secret balloting will start at once and continue without letup until one of the candidates has a clear majority, but chairmen of delegations will have no chance to intone the votes of provinces. A candidate may withdraw at any time but will have no opportunity to make a speech throwing his support to another. After the fourth ballot, if no decision has been reached, the low man will be dropped on every ballot until the field is narrowed down to two and a clear majority is established.

Who the winner will be was anybody's guess last week. Only two candidates had yet said for certain that they were seeking election: External Affairs Minister St. Laurent of Quebec and Agriculture Minister Gardiner of Saskatchewan. St. Laurent, with his bloc of support in powerful Quebec, was still the favorite. But the last Liberal convention in 1919 showed that favorites do not always run to form when the grind of uninterrupted balloting begins.

In 1919, when the late Sir Wilfred Laurier died, D. D. McKenzie, the acting party leader, and William Fielding, of Nova Scotia, were the top choices when the convention began.

Halfway through the meeting, a round-faced young man got up to read a resolution on industrial relations. The delegates liked his looks and liked what he said in his wordy, sobersided way. They elected Dark Horse Mackenzie King on the third ballot. That kind of thing might happen again.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.