LIBERALS TO DEBATE DUMPING MONARCHY AND LEGALIZING POT

Canada's Liberal party will consider a proposal this month 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;

- - Undertake a comprehensive public assessment of the environmental,
economic and social impacts of the oilsands developments;

- - Build a high-speed rail system through the Quebec City-Windsor,
Ont., and Edmonton-Calgary corridors and other jurisdictions, where
appropriate;

- - Establish a national child care pro-gram;

- - "Re-affirm" a woman's right to re-productive 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, puts forward 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
en-dangers Canadians by "generating significant resources for
gang-related violent criminal activity and weapons smuggling."