Young Liberals will maintain their influence in the choice of the PLQ leader

Photo: Justin Tang The Canadian Press The PLQ youth committee mobilized to oppose this resolution and to propose its own, which was also adopted on Friday.

Thomas Laberge – The Canadian Press

Published at 9:39

• Québec

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Young liberals will continue to have a big influence in choosing the next leader of the political party. A proposal to reduce their influence in the race was defeated at the congress on Friday.

Young members of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) account for 33% of the leadership votes. The Montarville Liberal Association proposed changing this weighting to one member, one vote, citing “systematic discrimination based on age.”

Liberal activists gathered in a convention defeated this proposal Friday evening. All the aspiring leaders had voted to continue to reserve a third of the votes for 16-25 year olds.

The PLQ youth committee had mobilized to oppose this resolution and to propose its own, which was also adopted Friday.

Before the adoption of the youth wing resolution, the leadership rules meant that each of the 125 ridings was worth 2,000 points for a total of 250,000. These points would have been distributed to the candidates as a percentage of the votes for members aged 26 and over. To this would have been added 125,000 points for members aged 25 and under.

However, the adopted proposal redistributes the 125,000 points awarded to young members in each of the constituencies, so that a riding will have 2,000 points for its members over 25 years old and 1,000 points for those 25 years old and under.

While some argue that the status quo ensures that young people have a disproportionate weight in the leadership, others argue that it encourages candidates to recruit more members aged 16-25.