About 3,000 Conservative party members were scheduled to arrive in a warm and sunny Calgary today, for the biennial policy convention postponed from last June because of the Calgary flood. Conservative delegates meet to discuss and vote on 82 policy amendments, as well as proposed amendments to the party’s constitution. Delegates will also elect the party’s new National Council.
Constitutional amendments up for debate range from the predictable — a call to promote Canada’s military pride — to the potentially contentious, e.g., a policy that federal party funds may not be used to support provincial Conservative parties.
On the Social Fabric policy side, resolutions do offer a few surprises, such as a declaration that the party will protect Canadians’ privacy — especially online — in all legislation. Another resolution calls for clear labelling of all food products, including country of origin, a reversal of previous government loosening of food labels. A third advocates that efforts to control prostitution, focus on purchasers and pimps, not prostitutes themselves.
Guns, health care, social services — historically, measures introduced at Conservative policy conferences like this one, have ended up in government omnibus bills.
Other resolutions are more predictable. Indeed, the government has already suggested some in Ottawa. One resolution would change public service pensions from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. Another would require amending all Human Rights Codes so that a faith group could refuse to let its facilities be used for purposes that contradict its beliefs (Catholic hospitals, anyone?). A third calls for privatization of First Nations band reserve lands. And of course, there’s a resolution to strip the CBC of public funding and require it to operate as reader-supported broadcasting.
Policy workshops are open only to Party members, advised the media handout. Media may attend the Prime Minister’s keynote speech on Friday, in the media section, but will have to be quick to nab ministers as they arrive for the lunchtime Ministerial Information Sessions on Friday.
“Western Wear Welcome” says the Convention schedule, but most of the delegates and officials arrived wearing suits. Mainly the black Smithbilt hats riding above the crowds (not Stetsons, as any Calgarian will tell you) indicated ubiquitous police officers.
There was nary a splash of Halloween orange here this October 31 — or anywhere in the airport-terminal-wide corridors or foyers of the Stampede Park BMO convention centre — for at least two good reasons. First, orange is the NDP colour, don’t you know. The meeting rooms have lots of blue, if only blue lights. And second, many church-going Albertans shun Halloween. They turn out their lights, lock their doors and leave for church-hosted “Autumn Fests,” with plenty of prayers and hymns to keep the darkness away.
Outside the BMO building at a nearby intersection, postal union workers stand beside a giant inflatable blue piggy bank, symbolizing their campaign to turn the post office into a national bank. The giant piggy bank is travelling all across Canada, and CUPW hopes the idea will have special appeal in the rural areas, where the post office once served as a symbol of Canadian government stability and pride, as well as being the local community centre.
Across the street, sculptor Dylan Hobal, best known for his work at Occupy Calgary, held up his wry sign that democracy has failed to install in Canada. Groups were staking out their positions along the street curb, with the Council of Canadians setting out their display coffins mourning the death of Canadian sovereignty, and of the Canadian justice system.
Thursday night, Council of Canadians National Chairperson Maude Barlow launched her new book, Blue Future, at the Unitarian Church of Calgary. Friday, the Conservatives will livestream the Prime Minister’s keynote speech, starting at 5 p.m. Mountain Time (7 p.m. ET) and the Council of Canadians coalition will livestream the Pros and Cons teach-in starting at 7 p.m. MT.
Thursday, as delegates and guests arrived at the Western Wear Welcome wonderland, for debates they intend to share only with one another, protesters outside prepared to invite the world to take a good hard look at the issues and decide for themselves, before the policies developed at this conference turn into the next series of expensive Economic Action Plan ads that try to tell people how to think.
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