Prime Minister Stephen Harper told party faithful that Conservatives need to take a pragmatic approach to the economic challenges ahead as the Tories opened their first policy convention in three years.
"We face enormous challenges and our work has only begun," Harper told more than 1,000 delegates Thursday evening.
"We will have to be both tough and pragmatic, not unrealistic or ideological, in dealing with the complex economic challenges before us."
The words were some of the few serious ones Harper spoke Thursday, as his speech at the Winnipeg Convention Centre was mostly one of Conservative congratulation and a look back at the right's return to power in Ottawa.
Harper also touted the Conservatives' gains in many parts of the country and said they were "Canada's party."
He also spoke of how far the party has come this decade, after the fractured-right spent most of the 1990s and early 2000s on the sidelines.
"We remember those days, when a Conservative government seemed as likely as a Prime Minister Gilles Duceppe," he said to laughs.
Earlier Thursday, Harper met with the national caucus before the convention gets around to the grassroots-policy making.
The prime minister welcomed 35 new Tory MPs elected last month at the caucus meeting.
Harper will be leaving Friday to attend the G20 summit meeting in Washington.
CTV's Jill Macyshon told Newsnet the convention is expected to be a "fairly low key" affair, but Conservative leaders may hammer out some new party policies over the next three days.
Topics up for discussion include:
- income splitting for families of children under seven
- term limits for supreme court judges
- entrenching rights of churches not to perform same-sex marriages
- call for an end to the gun registry
- increasing private health care
In all, delegates will debate about 90 policy resolutions.
The only major contentious point for Conservatives is over a Reform-style resolution to change the voting system at leadership conventions. The resolution would appoint one delegate for every 10 riding association members.
That would favour the larger Canadian Alliance ridings, and ex-Progressive Conservatives fought the measure at the 2005 convention.
Macyshon noted that the party would ordinarily hold a leadership review during the convention, but one is not needed this time because Harper won the federal election. Nearly 85 per cent of delegates supported Harper at the 2005 convention.
Delegates will wrap up on Sunday by electing the party's national council.
