Friday started off with Breakfast in the main dining hall where I spent a few minutes talking to Lois Brown (Newmarket-Aurora). I have family in her riding who used to own a now closed restaurant that was a mainstay there for decades and Mrs. Brown knew them well. This was also the first time I ran into Dr. Roy. He introduced me to the Atheist Conservative and pointed out the Christian Conservative, two other bloggers who were at the Convention.
After breakfast I made my way to the first half of the Social and Democratic Sessions where the two key motions that were debated were P-203 (Human Rights Commission Jurisdiction) and P-207 (Protecting Pregnant Woman). Human Rights Commissions abuse of section 13 may be one the government wants to manage like a surgeon with a scalpel to minimize the media spin on Human Rights, but the grassroots want to beat it with 1000 baseball bats and it was clearly favoured to pass. P-207 being such a special interest subject meant the masses in support of it were there to make sure it went on to Plenary.
The second half of the morning sessions, I shifted over to the Constitutional room where C-107 and C-117 were being debated heavily. These affect how EDA’s with less than 100 members will be represented in votes for leadership as well as the number of delegates. Being hot subjects for the old PC crowd and many Quebec ridings, this one was also defended well and in a split decision went on to Plenary. I was pleased in my selections of rooms to attend as it let me observe some of the very hot topics.
Lunch was lunch.
The afternoon had me floating around a bit and helping a friend promote himself for National Council. While helping him I managed to talk to Michael Chong, Marjory LeBreton, Jim Prentice, and several other dignitaries.
Dinner was not just dinner. We discovered a beer brewed locally called Fort Garry Dark. This was truly a treasure that I found myself asking bartenders about the rest of the weekend. It’s brewed locally without preservatives so is only found in some key places that move enough beer to not let it get stale which explains the freshness that made it so good. Apparently, the brewery that makes Kokanee recently purchased the Fort Garry brewery and is starting to ship it out to other areas of the country. In any case, I was very impressed, and I know my beer.
Post dinner had us attending the Canadian Indian Federation’s room where I was very impressed with the turnout as well as the way the room was managed. Being very supportive of Canadian-Indian relations, I was pleased to discuss the positive aspects of working in conjunction with such a large democracy in an area of the world where we can use some friends.