Talk:John Lynch-Staunton

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Canada: Quebec / Montreal / Politics Mid‑importance

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Question

There is no way that this guy could've been party leader, he was appointed as a senator before the conservative party even existed. Perhaps he led the party in the senate, however the template at the bottom shows him leading the federal conservative party in the hosue of commons, saying that McKay and Harper preceded him as leader and that Harper succeeded him. I'm not sure which is true, but one of these facts is not.--68.249.238.154 02:39, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A political party exists outside the House of Commons, and the leader of a party need not be its leader in the House. Don't equate the two.

For example, right now Paul Martin is the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and Bill Graham leads it in the House of Commons (this despite the fact that Martin still has a seat). When Jack Layton was elected head of the NDP, he became head of the NDP immediately, even though he didn't have a parliamentary seat. The same happened when Joe Clark became head of the PCs in the 90s, or when Harper became head of the Alliance in 2002: all were party leaders before leading the party in the House. So Stauton was indeed leader of the CPC. --Saforrest 17:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]