GRITS PUT MONARCHY ON TABLE

Convention Will Debate Ending Ties To Royal Family

The Liberal party will consider a proposal this month on whether the
country should examine formally severing ties with the British
monarchy. The resolution is just one of 30 that will be debated by
Liberal delegates at a Jan. 13-15 convention in Ottawa.

Also on the table will be such resolutions as whether to:

- - Legalize and regulate marijuana;

- - Support the Canadian Wheat Board;

- - Adopt a post-secondary education funding plan with student grants;

- - Appoint an independent "parliamentary science officer" who advises
Parliament on whether government policy is sufficiently taking
scientific knowledge into consideration;

- - Build high-speed rail sys-tems through the Quebec City-Windsor, and
Edmonton-Calgary corridors and other jurisdictions, where appropriate;

- - Establish a national child care program;

- - "Re-affirm" a woman's right to reproductive health services,
including abortion.

The convention comes at a crucial time in the party's history - eight
months after being trounced in a federal election, the Liberals are
hoping to rebuild by creating a more modern political organization,
and by presenting an attractive set of policies to Canadians.

Delegates will choose a new party president, and in the coming months
a key question will be whether there is a draft movement within the
party to let interim leader Bob Rae take on the job permanently.

The policy debates at the convention also promise to illustrate stark
contrasts with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's governing
Conservatives. In recent months, the Tories have unabashedly adopted
a pro-monarchy stance - reinstating the word "royal" into the names
of the air force and navy, and hanging a large portrait of the Queen
in the main foyer of the Foreign Affairs headquarters in Ottawa.

But a resolution put forward by the Young Liberals of Canada, to be
debated at the convention, proposes an argument for why the country
needs to turn a page on its links to the monarchy.

It notes that "Canada is a multicultural nation, built by people from
many diverse backgrounds and where at present no Canadian citizen can
ever aspire to be head of state of our own country."

Moreover, it says that "foreign law bars individuals not of the
Anglican faith" from becoming the monarch, and Canadians pay more to
maintain the monarchy than do the British. Finally, it notes an
"unelected individual can and is prepared to supersede the will of
the Parliament."

Delegates will vote on the following resolution:

"Be it resolved that the Liberal Party of Canada urge the Parliament
of Canada to form an all-party committee to study the implementation
of instituting a Canadian head of state popularly elected and sever
formal ties with the British Crown."

If the resolution passes at the convention, says the party, it will
be presented to the leader and parliamentary caucus "in order to form
the basis of our party's policies and eventual platform."

The resolution advocating the legalization of marijuana also comes
from Young Liberals.

It says that after almost 100 years of prohibition, "millions of
Canadians today regularly consume marijuana and other cannabis products."

The failed prohibition "of marijuana has exhausted countless billions
of dollars spent on ineffective or incomplete enforcement and has
resulted in unnecessarily dangerous and expensive congestion in our
judicial system," it adds.

The resolution says the current criminalization of marijuana
endangers Canadians by "generating significant resources for
gang-related violent criminal activity and weapons smuggling."

The resolution offers a different approach:

"Be it resolved that a new Liberal government will legalize marijuana
and ensure the regulation and taxation of its production,
distribution, and use, while enacting strict penalties for illegal
trafficking, illegal importation and exportation, and impaired driving."

It also says the Liberals would invest in education programs to
promote awareness of the health risks of marijuana.