POT PROPOSALS STOPPED SHORT AT CONVENTION

Shootings Used To Justify Stiffer Grow Op Penalties

The Liberal party shot down two controversial policies on marijuana reforms
Saturday in favour of a resolution to consider decriminalizing
prostitution, something that was considered a longshot heading into the
party's policy convention.

An emotionally charged debate over federal marijuana laws, set against a
backdrop of four dead Mounties, was contained within a raucous committee
room and never made it to the party's main convention floor.

In debates over separate initiatives to increase penalties for those who
run marijuana grow operations and to legalize the drug, the party hashed
out issues that had hung over the convention all weekend.

"Today, frankly, I have to tell you that I enjoyed the esthetics of the
debate," said Justice Minister Irwin Cotler of the marijuana resolutions,
which pitted Young Liberals, the youth wing of the party, against older
Liberals.

"If this will help improve and increase understanding in the public at
large and further the debate, then it's all for the good."

At a policy workshop on justice issues, a packed room of Liberal delegates
voted in favour of both marijuana resolutions, but decided it was more
important to push Canada's governing party to reconsider legislation in
order to keep prostitutes out of harm's way.

Delegates cast 181 votes for sex-workers rights; 166 for stiffer grow-op
penalties; and 133 in favour of legalizing marijuana.

The contentious pot debate was immediately framed in the tragedy of four
RCMP officers gunned down Thursday during a raid on an Alberta farm that
was found to contain a small grow operation.

"We knew that something drastic was going to happen and we just didn't know
when," B.C. delegate Ginny Hasselfield said as she proposed the grow op
sentencing resolution.

Her assertion drew loud groans from the back of the packed room.

"Do we want a U.S. war-on-drugs approach to this problem? Or will we sit
down and consider a Liberal solution?" responded one delegate to loud cheers.

The mandatory sentence resolution was adopted, nonetheless.

A review of legislation outlawing the solicitation of prostitutes was
ultimately among those adopted to official Liberal Party policy. Young
Liberals had campaigned hard in favour of the policy, but had not expected
such success heading into the convention.

Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Anne McLellan appeared
to breathe a sigh of relief that the controversial marijuana proposals
would not become official Liberal policy.

A Cannabis Reform Bill has been tabled in the House of Commons and is under
review. It is almost certain to dominate question period when the Commons
resumes sitting this week.

"We take input from many sources, including our party and what I am also
saying is that the policy of this government is clear. We do not support
legalization. And that is the government policy," said McLellan, whose
portfolio oversees the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

"Young Liberals come and one would hope that they do their homework and it
is an informed and respectful debate, but I would be amazed if Young
Liberals came to a convention like this and don't push the envelope."

Legalization advocate Dan Arnold, a Young Liberal from Alberta, said he has
never smoked the drug but believes the government stands to collect as much
as $3 billion in taxes from the legalization of marijuana.

Despite his defence of the emotionally charged resolution, he suggested it
was better for the party to avoid the continued controversy that would have
come from the further discussion of marijuana reforms.

"It's probably a good thing," he admitted. "You always want to avoid
controversial resolutions."

Marc Boris St-Maurice, who defected from the Marijuana party to the Liberal
party in anticipation of the cannabis debate, accused Grits for and against
drug reform of using the shooting deaths of four RCMP officers in northern
Alberta on Thursday to politicize the debate, something he has tried to
back away from.

"I feel it is a shame that some people tried to play politics with that,
but I'm suspecting that will always happen," he said. He was disappointed
his cause was defeated by the sex-worker issue.

"I think . . . the sex-trade worker resolution draws from the same sort of
activist base as the legalize marijuana resolution," he said. "It has
driven a wedge and I think had that issue not been there there would have
been larger support for the legalization resolutions."