OTTAWA -- Conservative Party members will congregate Thursday in Halifax for their national convention. There, supporters will get the chance to deliberate and advance new policy ideas, or pass amendments to current positons.
The process will span over Friday and Saturday, first with voting on the highest-ranked policies in three separate breakout sessions, followed by the up to 30 successful propositions being debated and voted on at the Saturday plenary.
The policies will be addressed based on the number of votes they received ahead of the convention. In order to pass the breakout room and make it to the convention floor for Saturday’s plenary, the policies must receive 80 per cent support. Out of each of the three rooms, a maximum of 10 policies will make it. If more than 10 receive 80 per cent support, the policies with the highest percentages of support will advance.
Each of these breakouts is three hours long. Once that time is maxed out, anything not yet voted on dies.
Once Friday’s breakouts are complete, the up to 30 successful policies will go to the broader policy plenary, where for three hours a similar process occurs, moving through the most popular proposals until the clock runs out.
The successful initiatives will be added to the party’s policy declaration. Here is a guide to some of the 76 policy resolutions that members will be debating:
Environment, economy, trade
On the environment, a few Electoral District Associations (EDAs) from the East Coast want it to be party policy to recognize the impact of climate change and pledge to be a "world class leader" in reducing greenhouse gasses. Another EDA would like the carbon tax to be axed.
The Fredericton EDA would like to see conservatives explicitly state that the party supports building the Energy East pipeline.
Economically, one Alberta riding says the party should embrace broad tax reductions and not smaller tax credits, while an Ontario EDA wants to see the family tax credits removed by the Liberals get restored.
A Quebec riding association wants the province to be allowed to file a single tax return.
There is also a call to champion the "ABC’s of competition," aka: increasing competition for airlines, banks, and cellphone companies.
As for trade policy, there are a few proposals related to opening up interprovincial trade barriers, like allowing a freer flow of beer and wine.
A few ridings across the country have backed a policy to see supply management phased out.
Not unlike a proposition brought to the Liberal policy convention, there’s also a call from two Newfoundland EDAs to provide a federal ferry service between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
Social policy, health, justice
There are also a handful of abortion-related proposals, including creating a "pre-born child policy" to protect the lives of unborn fetuses.
On physician-assisted dying, there’s a call to oppose extending the option to "minors, to people who are not competent and people who live with psychological suffering."
Among the criminal justice proposals are calls to better protect victims' rights by elevating the federal ombudsman to an agent of Parliament; a new policy stating the party "supports Canadians' lawful use of self-defence to protect life, bodily integrity, and property"; and to prohibit any convicted terrorists from receiving financial settlements.
There are also a good number of social policy proposals, including a few related to getting rid of the Liberals’ summer jobs grant values attestation; a policy modification to state pornography is a public health risk; and repealing what the two Hamilton-are EDAs describe as "'gender identity' legislation which compels Canadians to utter made-up pronouns like ‘ze’ and ‘zir.’"
Another proposal would see the party replace "women" with "Canadians" from its policy about equality. So for example, in the sentence "Women must be entitled to equal pay for equal work," it would say "Canadians must be entitled…"
International affairs
As for immigration and refugee policy, there are a few new propositions related to renegotiating the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement and stopping all illegal entries into Canada.
There are Conservatives that want to see foreign contributions to Canadian third-party organizations banned during election campaigns.
Rounding things out, there are also a few proposals to see the party commit to, if in government, spending the NATO target of two per cent of GDP on national defence.
To read more on these, and the other over six-dozen proposals, .
