Liberal MPs won’t have to fight for the right to carry the ruling party’s banner in the next election — provided their riding war chest is at least half full and they’ve made concerted efforts to keep in contact with voters.
Under new rules unveiled at a Liberal caucus meeting Sunday, incumbents who meet those and several other conditions by Oct. 1 will be acclaimed as candidates for the 2019 election, without the bother of having to win open nomination contests.
The new rules represent an about-face for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who ended the Liberal party’s 20-year-old practice of protecting incumbents from nomination challenges when he took the helm in 2013.
This says it at all: