An electoral district association (french: association de circonscription enregistrée), commonly known as a riding association (french: association de comté) or constituency association, is the basic unit of a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

at the level of the

electoral district An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...

(" riding") in

Canadian politics The politics of Canada function within a framework of parliamentary democracy and a federal system of parliamentary government with strong democratic traditions. Canada is a constitutional monarchy, in which the monarch is head of state. In pr ...

. Major political parties attempt to have a riding association in each constituency, although usually these associations are more active in ridings where the party has an elected

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

or has a reasonable chance of electing an MP in the future, and less active in ridings where the party's prospects have historically been poor. Most riding associations have an elected executive and attempt to have activities for local party members at regular intervals. At a minimum, riding associations hold an annual general meeting to elect the executive and meetings to elect delegates to national and regional party policy conventions. Riding associations are most active during election campaigns when they participate, along with the party's national or regional campaign teams, in organizing the riding's election campaign. In addition, the party constitution usually allows each riding association to hold a nomination meeting, which selects the party's local candidate. However, some party constitutions allow the leader to bypass the riding association and appoint a candidate of his or her choosing, although virtually all parties maintain limits on the number of ridings where the leader may do so. The other time when riding associations are most active are in the lead up to

leadership convention {{Politics of Canada In Canadian politics, a leadership convention is held by a political party when the party needs to choose a leader due to a vacancy or a challenge to the incumbent leader. Overview In Canada, leaders of a party generally rem ...

s. Riding associations were more important in this aspect in the past, when they would elect supporters of a particular leadership candidate to participate as delegates at a leadership convention. Many parties, however, have moved away from the delegated system of electing a leader to a one member, one vote system in which all party members vote by ballot. However, as the riding association remains the prime point of contact between members and the party they remain important for leadership candidates in their attempt to gain support, and prospective leadership candidates will often attempt to win control of a riding association's executive when it is elected at the annual general meeting even if a leadership election is not anticipated for several years. Riding associations also exist at the provincial level and operate in the same manner.

See also