UCP draft resolutions take Aim At reversing NDP policies

Gun rights. Parental control of education. Cuts to public service pay. The right to recall politicians. Defining family only as the union of a man and a woman.

Those are just a few of the draft resolutions — nearly 800 of them — considered for debate at this weekend’s United Conservative Party founding meeting in Red Deer.

The final list of resolutions, about 250, won’t be disclosed until members and journalists get their convention packages on Friday.

But a draft list dated April 18, obtained by Postmedia, shows a virtual eruption of traditional conservative concerns and a deep desire to reverse many NDP policies.

For instance, Calgary-Hays riding demands that Alberta governments “not enact any new form of taxation without first putting the proposed tax to a general vote via a referendum.”

That’s a jab at the NDP’s carbon tax, which is the subject of other abolition resolutions.

One proposal calls for giving independent schools full authority to define education in accordance with their religious beliefs.

Another resolution says, “It is proven, known and intuitive that strong, loving, stable, committed, gender-balanced (traditional) families ensure the best health and well-being outcomes for children and therefore for society as a whole.”

Another says, “Children must be protected from ‘gender identity’ and sexual preference discovery in schools, respecting wide-spread, valid concerns by parents.”

The NDP’s current Gender Guidelines, the resolution states, “constitute a direct attack on families and put children in schools at significant risk.”

Later Tuesday, the UCP told me those gender policy statements “didn’t make the cut”— that is, they won’t appear in the final resolutions book or be debated on the floor.

The proposals are a clear challenge to NDP policies and gay-straight alliances in schools. They suggest the power to form alliances should be taken away from students.

And there’s more. Another resolution says schools must “allow parents the ability to have current information of their child’s activities if the parents request such information.”

This goes straight to last year’s emotional debate over whether parents have the right to know a child has joined a gay-straight alliance.

Another remarkable resolution calls for giving “all Alberta schools the authority to contract arm’s-length organizations, societies or business to administrate and deliver educational services on behalf of the school.”

That would mean contracting out not just the construction of schools, but education itself.

There’s much more of this, including proposals for user pay in health care and a call to reexamine “medically necessary” procedures, which is often code for defunding abortion.

UCP Leader Jason Kenney has often said he wants to avoid legislating on social issues. At the convention, we’ll see if he also wants to avoid debating them. Many of the more provocative proposals may be deleted.

It also has to be said that the majority of resolutions are traditional conservative pleas for good governance, sound finances and quality education. There are many pleas for tolerance sprinkled among the resolutions.

Several call for reintroduction of the 10 per cent flat tax on income. One says it should not happen, though, until after the budget is balanced.

The UCP riding in Spruce Grove- St. Albert says the work day for Alberta public service employees should be reduced by 15 minutes, to seven hours. This is claimed to save three per cent of overall compensation.

Many resolutions recognize the need for climate change action, although they don’t extend to applause for the NDP’s carbon tax.

There are calls to fight the federal carbon levy. The general emphasis is on provincial solutions to emissions and pollution.

An intriguing portrait of the party’s nature emerges from this unfiltered chaos of 779 resolutions from all corners of the province.

It is generally a practical group, focused on winning the next election with bread-and-butter issues.

But the social conservative side is still very active in the UCP, pressing policies that are always emotional and divisive — the very ones Kenney wants to avoid, and the NDP hopes to exploit.

It will be interesting to see how many of those make it to the convention floor. And how many UCP members will be angry when they don’t.