DELEGATES TO HASH OUT GUN-CONTROL POLICY

Social and justice workshop passes measures; Marijuana Party founder
says legalization of pot would be a boon to tax collectors

ANDY RIGA, The Gazette

Liberal delegates today will debate whether the party should support a
ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons.

Montrealer Ethan Cox, a gun-control activist working with Dawson
shooting victim Hayder Kadhim, yesterday made a plea for the motion,
which urges Ottawa to support "legislation to eliminate the personal
use of automatic and semi-automatic weapons."

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper "has embarrassed himself in
front of the country by refusing to meet with Hayder Kadhim, by
refusing to deal with gun control," Cox told delegates at a policy
workshop.

"The Liberal Party can be the standard bearer. I urge you strongly on
behalf of victims of (the Dawson shooting) and all others to" back the
motion.

One of the weapons used by Dawson gunman Kimveer Gill was a legally
obtained semi-automatic rifle.

Delegates at the social and justice workshop passed the gun-control
motion, which now moves to today's full party plenary. In total, the
workshop passed 20 motions, but only three got the support required to
reach the plenary - the next step required for it to become official
party policy.

The other two social and justice motions that will go to today's
plenary urge Ottawa to reduce child poverty and boost affordable housing.

The only contentious workshop motion was one calling for pot's
legalization.

Marijuana Party founder Marc Boris St-Maurice, who defected to the
Liberals two years ago, presented the pot motion, arguing the
substance isn't dangerous and legalizing it would allow governments to
reap great tax benefits.

But Bob Goulais, a delegate from North Bay Ont., said it would be a
mistake to legitimize pot.

"This is linked to organized crime, this is big crime," Goulais said.
"I don't want to be a part of Canada where my kids are seeing people
smoking up on the side of the road just for the sake of a few tax dollars."

Delegates supported the motion by a 28-15 vote, but it failed to get
the needed support to reach today's session.

n In a policy workshop on international affairs, delegates voted
against increasing Canadian support for international peacekeeping
operations, once a hallmark of Liberal government foreign policy.

Delegates defeated a resolution calling on the party to support
development of a federal government strategy to increase Canada's
effective role in military and non-military peacekeeping and conflict
resolution.

Among the workshop's three priority resolutions, one urged the
Canadian government to begin pushing for an international convention
regulating the global trade in small arms and light weapons and their
munitions.

Another called for the government to ensure that freshwater resources
are treated as a common good under public ownership.

The final priority resolution supported the United Nations Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous people to be voted on by the UN, and
called on the federal government to develop a comprehensive arctic
sovereignty strategy.

n The controversial motion to recognize Quebec as a nation was
withdrawn without discussion at the request of its sponsors, Quebec
wing members Marc Belanger and William Hogg, who had announced their
intention the day before on the ground that the issue had been
adequately resolved by a House of Commons vote to that effect on Monday.

n Delegates in a health policy workshop endorsed a resolution
supported by one-time Progressive Conservative leadership candidate
David Orchard that calls for tougher measures to limit environmental
contaminant linked to cancer.

"I'm pleased to be speaking at my first Liberal convention," said
Orchard, now a Liberal and a Stephane Dion supporter. He said that in
his native Saskatchewan spraying of pesticides is widespread and
appealing for stricter controls. Without them, "our health costs are
to continue to rise," he warned.

The remaining two priority health resolutions call for more preventive
health measures and clear performance indicators across Canada. The
Quebec government, jealous of its jurisdiction over health care,
opposes Canada-wide performance indicators.