Tories vote to accept same-sex marriage

After an emotional debate, the vote was not even close: 1,036-462, with a majority of provincial delegations supporting the move that leadership candidate Maxime Bernier told the hall was all about “freedom and respect.”

“It’s about us telling to Canadians you can love who you want, and you can be loved,” he said.

The resolution passed in large measure because it was a compromise that recognized “the freedom of religious organizations to refuse to perform unions or allow the use of their facilities for events incompatible with their faith and beliefs.”

When the results were announced, the hall erupted in whoops, and loud and sustained applause.

The resolution had won the support of social conservative delegates like Jordan Schroeder, a law student and young delegate from Vancouver Quadra, who described himself as a traditional Christian with traditional views on marriage.

“But I also think we live in a liberal society — not Liberal meaning Justin Trudeau, but meaning freedom for everyone and respect for other people’s points of view and the way they live their life.”

“I have two definitions of marriage, and that’s what I defend in my church. I defend it at Trinity Western University . . . but then I also have a public definition of marriage, a Canadian definition of marriage, and that’s something that we all come together and agree on.”

Peter MacKay, a founder of the party and potential leadership candidate identified with the party’s progressive wing, said he was thrilled with the vote. “I think it’s a sign of the party that’s matured.” Bernier said it would help the party be more competitive in the next election.

Some had warned of a dire political price to pay with the loss of the social conservative vote, but interim leader Rona Ambrose said she was “not at all concerned” that would result because the debate had been handled in a “very respectful way.”

In an interview with the Star, Ambrose said “it might be difficult for some people, but everyone I’ve talked to said they understand this is the change, they respect the vote and we’re a united party and we move forward.”

One delegate had called the resolution “an attack on our values and principle . . . family, faith and community.” Another opponent said while it protects religious institutions, it didn’t protect individual conscience rights. He said Christian bakers would not be able to refuse a request for a gay couple’s wedding cake, “leaving them open to litigation.” Still another said support for traditional marriage was not about discrimination against gays, but “man-woman marriage is about children knowing and being raised by both a mother and a father,” he said.

In the end, however, members rejected warnings it would cost the party the backing of its social conservative wing.

In another surprising reversal of traditional party policy long supported by Stephen Harper’s government, Conservative members voted to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana possession, endorsing ticketing as a sanction, after former public safety minister Steven Blaney and Julian Fantino, former Toronto police chief, supported the move publicly.

Still, the party did not shift to the centre on other issues. An effort to modify its opposition to assisted suicide didn’t make it to the full convention floor.

A resolution to protect conscience rights for doctors and nurses to refuse to offer or refer patients for abortion, assisted suicide rights, or euthanasia did pass.

So did resolutions to affirm the party’s support for legally owned firearms, a statement that “civilian firearms ownership” is a Canadian heritage; a “belief in the value and dignity of all human life” as a core party principle in its constitution; support for pipelines, including the Energy East project that is controversial in Quebec; and explicit opposition to gender-selective abortion. Members voted to abolish the Indian Act, and to require a mandatory referendum in advance of any electoral reform.

The only pollution policy did not specifically address “climate change” or “greenhouse gases.” It pledges to fight ground-level ozone, particulate matter that causes smog, and to enact stringent vehicle fuel efficiency and exhaust emission standards.

But it was the debate on marriage that was the fiercest, most emotional and defining discussion of the convention in a workshop Friday and on the convention floor Saturday.

Two of the party’s leading social conservatives, Jason Kenney and Andrew Scheer, had said it was high time to update the party’s stance on marriage to reflect modern reality and doubted there would be significant fallout.

Kenney told reporters it was “a no-brainer,” adding there was no point having a party declaration that “uses obsolete language about something that was changed in law and society a decade ago.”

“You’re never going to get complete unanimity in any party. On any given day on any given issue there are people who come and go on the margins of the party but that will not affect at all the core or the breadth of the coalition,” said Kenney.

Eric Lorenzen, an executive member of LGBTory which had been pushing for the change, addressed the convention and said “as a gay Conservative I find it troubling that the party of which I’ve been a member for almost 40 years has a policy that tells me my relationship with my partner is not valued, my civil rights are of no concern.” He said the party doesn’t have any negative policy towards any other group.

A young female delegate who did not identify herself told delegates, “I come from a country where homosexuals are hanged, where homosexuals are persecuted. We come here for freedom & equality. I support my friends and family who are in this community because it is a fundamental right and government does not have a place in your bedroom.”

Jack Fonseca, of Kitchener-Centre, warned the vote would “gut the Conservative party of social conservatives, driving them away, their votes, their volunteerism, their activism . . . they’ll stay home on election day and leave the Conservative party a rump . . . and ensure Liberal rule for a generation.”

But a self-declared social conservative delegate said: “I’m standing in favour of this . . . it’s a workable compromise.”

Party elder and Reform Party founder Preston Manning did not discount an impact on the party of the marriage policy change, saying it would depend on how it is interpreted. He said the party should have taken it a step further and said the state has nothing to do with defining marriage, a measure he said would have satisfied both social conservatives and libertarians in the party. He said eventually, that is where the party should end up.

“As a Christian I define marriage a certain way and I continue to do that regardless of what the state’s position is.”

It was clear some were not happy. Rod Bruinooge, a former MP who once chaired the party’s pro-life caucus, refused to comment, leaving the room and the convention shortly after the vote.

Conservative MP Brad Trost had made a spirited pitch to retain the party’s support for the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. He dismissed arguments based on equality, likening it to socialist arguments on income equality, and warning it could lose support from a key portion of its voter base.

But several sitting MPs were satisfied with the outcome. Candice Bergen “it was the right policy to pass, it was the right time.” Deepak Obhrai said it brings the party’s stance in line with human rights and brings it to “where the Canadian public is.”

As the convention closed, Kenney said the message to take away was that the party is in a good position to be competitive in the 2019 election, pointing to a surprisingly high number of delegates here. He said it remains a “fundraising juggernaut” with “happy and engaged members, the most youth members ever.”

“This is an incredible sign of health and vitality in the party which frankly many of us were not expecting. And I’ll be honest with you, I think I and some others were expecting this to be a bit of a wake, a bit of a funeral reception and it doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels like the party that Stephen Harper put together has gelled and it’s growing.”

Among other policies the Conservatives adopted here, was a call for a mandatory requirement for a national referendum prior to any future electoral reform, and the passage of a new debt pay-down goal to drop a 20 per cent debt-to-GDP ratio as the target, in favour of declining debt-to-GDP ratio, which one member argued gives the party more flexibility. It happens also to be the goal that the Liberals have set for themselves in the last federal budget.

In Winnipeg, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mocked the debates going on at the Conservative convention.

“Our Conservative friends are also meeting this weekend. They’re in Vancouver where, among other things, they’re debating the merits of marriage equality. In 2016. More than a decade after we made same-sex marriage legal in Canada. Well . . . better late than never, right?” he said.

“Who knows … 10 years from now, they might finally be willing to admit that climate change is real. Or that tax cuts for rich people don’t help the middle class. Or that government shouldn’t legislate what women are allowed to wear on their heads.

We can hope, my friends. We can hope.”

Ambrose retorted the Conservative government had a 10-year record tackling climate change and the Trudeau government has done nothing to date. “He’s running on our record right now; he took our plan to Paris and gloated about it and bragged about it.”