MONTREAL Ñ It was one small but telling sign that the centre of ideology in the Conservative party has migrated east from its prairie-based Reform party roots since the merger with the Progressive Conservative party.
Delegates to the Conservative convention March 19 were asked to approve what once would have been a routine Reform position Ñ that a Conservative government would create a citizens’ assembly to consider electoral reform, including proportional representation, and would set fixed election dates.
Alberta and Manitoba delegates voted strongly for the proposal, as did delegates from Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.
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But strong opposition from Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland delegates defeated the proposal 56 percent to 44 percent.
Delegates earlier had handily defeated a proposal that a Conservative government approve legislation allowing recall of MPs in mid-term, an article of faith in Alberta since the formation of the Social Credit party in the mid-1930s.
“It is, I suppose, in part a reflection that this is a broader party, that it has more of an eastern presence now,” veteran Alberta Conservative MP Leon Benoit said in an interview.
Eastern concerns
He also suggested some of the eastern Canadian delegates voting against the “democratic reform” proposals may have been scared off by concerns that the reforms would destabilize the democratic system or be abused by political opponents to harass MPs who win with a slim majority or a plurality.
“I think these things could be made to work but they clearly concerned and maybe confused a lot of delegates,” Benoit said. “These may be new concepts to many but of course, we’ve been debating and advocating them in Alberta for decades.”
A resolution to affirm support for national bilingualism policies in the federal government attracted to the microphone a delegate who uttered the traditional Reform criticism that official bilingualism is divisive and costly. When a B.C. francophone immigrant and a black Quebec immigrant rose to praise bilingualism, they drew a prolonged standing ovation from most of the several thousand delegates in the Montreal convention centre.
A resolution calling for a future Conservative government not to support “any legislation to regulate abortion” was supported by 54 percent of delegates despite a fiery anti-abortion speech by former PC icon Elsie Wayne from Saint John, N.B.
“I do not believe the majority of people at this convention are in favour of killing babies,” Wayne said as some members of the audience booed.
In his keynote speech to the convention, leader Stephen Harper pre-empted the vote by announcing that as prime minister, he would not introduce legislation on abortion.
