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The concept of “leader’s courtesy” may be about to make a come-back. It might sound as quaint and old-fashioned as monacles and top-hats but it is simply a form of parliamentary etiquette that means other parties don’t run candidates in byelections in which a rival party leader is running.

Green leader Elizabeth May has already extended the courtesy to NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, in the forthcoming byelection for the vacant seat of Burnaby South in British Columbia. Liberals say privately they are mulling the idea but no decision has been taken.

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The idea has fallen into abeyance in some quarters but one Liberal pointed out the party did not run a candidate against Stephen Harper when he ran in a byelection as Canadian Alliance leader in Calgary Southwest in 2002; or against Stockwell Day when he was the Alliance leader in the Okanagan-Coquihalla in 2000; or when Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark launched his parliamentary come-back in Nova Scotia’s Kings-Hants riding in the same year.

Somewhat spoiling their reputation as the boy scouts of Canadian politics, the Grits did run candidate Glen Pearson against May in a byelection in London, Ont., in 2006 (the Liberals subsequently pulled their candidate from running against the Green leader in a Nova Scotia seat in the 2008 election).