Interim Staff:
At their recent national convention, the Conservative Party of Canada transformed an opportunity to lead the charge on the protection of Canada’s founding values into an exercise in defending the modern political status quo.
Voting delegates from ridings across Canada gathered in Calgary from Jan. 29-31 to network with fellow party members, hear from distinguished speakers, and vote on amendments to the party’s policy handbook and constitution, as well as on the leadership of Pierre Poilievre, who has led the party since 2022.
Beginning last October, Conservative Electoral District Associations nationwide prepared for the convention by selecting their voting delegates and supporting policy and constitutional proposals put forth by fellow EDAs, with the most popular submissions advancing to the convention floor.
Campaign Life Coalition, the national pro-life and pro-family advocacy group, took a particular interest in advancing policies pushing for harder stances against abortion, euthanasia, and LGBT ideology, as well as constitutional amendments to bolster power and fairness for the grassroots in matters of candidate selection after seeing more than 100 top-down candidate acclamations by the party during the 2025 federal election.
On the first day of the convention, CLC representatives held a strategy session for fellow social conservative delegates, educating on best practices for the numerous hours of voting that would take place on days two and three.
The opening ceremonies begun in the early evening, with a performance from Canadian country artist Brent Kissel followed by a rendition of O Canada, sung using the gender-neutral lyrics adopted by Parliament in 2018 under Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
On day two, the CLC team stood outside of voting rooms, well-received by a vast majority of delegates, dispersing literature in support of policy proposals to remove the party’s 20-year policy against supporting anti-abortion regulation as well as protecting vulnerable people from euthanasia and allowing counseling for gender-confused children who seek to reaffirm biological reality, while condemning 2021’s Conversion Therapy Bill which amended the Criminal Code to allow for up to five years in prison for parents who seek good-faith body-affirming therapy for their children.
Inconveniently for social conservative delegates, the voting for constitutional proposals took place concurrently with voting for social policy proposals, forcing many delegates to move strategically between rooms. The proposal “Delete 86” to remove the party’s longstanding policy against abortion restriction was defeated, aided by the intervention of pro-abortion MP Roman Baber, who argued against the pro-life view on libertarian grounds of the mother’s bodily autonomy, neglecting the right of the preborn child not to be killed.
The ten policies from each policy area (social, fiscal, government) and ten constitutional proposals which received the highest percentage of support advanced to a plenary voting session on day three, where a double majority vote in favour (a majority of delegates plus a majority in six of 11 provinces, with the territories counting as equal to one province) would pass the proposal, inserting it into the policy handbook or party constitution, respectively.
On day three, Jack Fonseca, director of political operations for Campaign Life Coalition spoke in favour of his EDA’s policy proposal, also supported by notable Canadian anti-gender ideology activist “Billboard Chris” Elston, to allow good-faith counseling for gender confused children, which made it to the plenary session as the tenth most supported proposal in the social policy room. However, this effort was hampered by pro-abortion and pro-LGBT MP Tamara Kronis, who formerly served as advocacy director of Egale Canada, an LGBT advocacy group. The policy achieved the first majority of support with 51.85 per cent of delegates voting in favour, but ultimately fell short, receiving majority support in only five of the required six provinces, with just 49 per cent of Manitoba delegates and 47 per cent of Nova Scotia delegates voting for it.
Each of the other 39 policies and constitutional amendments were adopted.
Despite the failure of the most significant CLC-endorsed policy proposals to appear in the party’s policy handbook, CLC national president Jeff Gunnarson said he was quite pleased with the organization’s success. According to Gunnarson, ten “pro-faith, pro-freedom” policy resolutions endorsed by the group were passed, including “a commitment to protect Christian charities (including pro-life ones), a pledge to protect licensed professionals from having their accreditation revoked solely for voicing their opinion or refusing compelled for high immigration levels is an “elitist project” to suppress wages, benefitting corporate “big wigs” at the expense of the average Canadian.
Campaign Life Coalition, the national pro-life and pro-family advocacy group, sent representatives to Calgary to participate actively at the convention and run strategy sessions with socially conservative voting delegates, pursuing the best possible outcomes to advance social conservative priorities. Though the organization held an officially neutral position on Poilievre’s leadership due to the lack of an acceptable alternative candidate, they noted that he had betrayed the pro-life and pro-family views which once allowed him to hold their endorsement before he became party leader.
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