On Sunday morning at the national convention of the Liberal party, over 1200 delegates voted on whether or not the Liberal party would officially endorse the legalization of marijuana. The motion passed with 77% of the participants voting for the move, and the Liberal party joins the NDP as the two major political parties pushing to legalize or decriminalize the substance.
A more cynical reading of their decision would be that this is an attempt by the Liberal party to create a minor buzz, especially among the youth vote, and make up for its embarrassing trouncing in the last federal election where it fell it lost nearly half of its seat, dropping from 77 to 34. Even considering the transparency of the decision, it nonetheless stands as a positive shift that would encourage Canada to take up the standards of countries like the Netherlands and Argentina where marijuana has been decriminalized.
Samuel Lovoie, president of the Young Liberals of Canada, said “There is no doubt that there’s a strong will from the membership to have this part of our election platform...As to whether it will be a platform commitment in 2015, we will see.”
So there is still some caution to be made as positive a sign this may be, politicians have a history of going back on their word. This being the supposedly democratically polled position of an entire party would make it even harder, but it shouldn't be considered as a part of the Liberal platform until officially announced as such.
Also voted on at the convention was the possibility of dissolving the relationship between Canada and the British monarchy. This was unsuccessful as 67% of the party opposed it, ensuring that Elizabeth II would remain head of the state in Canada represented by her current governor general David Johnston.
This second motion was less an attempt to change the position of the Liberal party but to open up debate on an issue most Canadians take for granted. As a representation of Canada's history, the monarchy is a powerful symbol, and Canadians obviously have some fascination with it as shown by the royal visit of Prince William and his new wife Catherine Middleton. But there's no denying the archaic symbol of a monarchy which now only serve as figureheads and fodder for gossip rags.
Also discussed at the convention was changing the procedure for choosing party leadership to follow a more American style of election which would involve going from province to province to decide leadership of the Liberal party, much in the way Republicans are currently fighting it out in the United States. This was also defeated, possibly because of a quick look at how ridiculously divisive that system has been working in the U.S., and possibly because 'being more American' are the optics that cost the Liberals so many seats in the last election, the veracity of that notwithstanding.
There are still three years for the Liberals to figure out what will materialize out of these changes to their positions. Unless we get another early election of course; we all know how much Canadians love those, right?
José Gonzalez
Related Articles:
2012 Mayans and Science and Lies...Oh my! Mercado News Magazine
España: Andalucía
Last 3 tweets from mercadonewsmag:
