cpc conventionwatch 2008

Despite every intention of not doing so, I somehow wound up liveblogging the constitutional plenary session this morning , so I figured I may as well just give up on the whole not-liveblogging idea, and start a fresh thread for the far more eagerly anticipated policy plenary, which is scheduled to get started any minute now.

Originally posted in the running commentary/semi-liveblog/open thread:

Starting at 10am EST, CPAC will be providing live coverage from the floor of the Conservative convention, including both the constitutional and policy plenary sessions, which will run from 11:30am to 1pm, and 2:30pm to 5pm respectively, according to the official programme.

The complete (as of Friday night, anyway) list of resolutions to be voted on at tomorrow’s plenary sessions, via Dimitri Soudas (but annotated by ITQ, which is probably evident from some of the descriptions):

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SCROLL DOWN FOR THE LATEST UPDATES

If so, you’d be very, very wrong. Unlike the health and safety or social and democratic policy packages, there’s almost nothing remotely contentious up for debate as far as the party’s economic platform goes. Sure, there’s a not-so-veiled attempt to neuter labour unions here, a sneak attack on Big Patent Owner there, but overall, I’d predict that the debate over these resolutions is going to be a snoozer – which actually works out for delegates, since all three packages are scheduled to be debated at the same time, but in different rooms, Friday morning from 8:30 til noon.

Before we get started with the latest additions to the ITQ cheatsheet for the upcoming Conservative Party policy convention – which starts tomorrow, you guys; I know, it totally snuck up on me, too – I’d just like to point out that, according to prodigal spokeschirper Ryan Sparrow, none of these resolutions are likely to have any influence whatsoever over, you know, actual public policy, at least as far as the government is concerned. As he told the Globe and Mail last week, “They’re just like any other consultation you would have with any stakeholder group”.

Fear not, intrepid ITQ readers who are sticking it out through the turbulent – but temporary – format tweaking that is currently underway: this post will be updated just as soon as I’ve had time to think of some smart and/or witty things to say about the policy resolutions that are up for debate at next week’s convention in Winnipeg. Which, incidentally, still have yet to be officially released, as far as I know, but are slowly but surely leaking out, despite the best efforts of the Conservative Party to keep the package under wraps until the very last possible moment. (For ITQ’s money, that likely almost nothing to do with the content, which is pretty tame by like, oldschool Reform standards, but is just another example of the control freakiness of the national office.)

If anyone wants to compare the resolutions to be debated at next week’s convention to the Policy Declaration that came out of the party’s last convention in 2005, a PDF of the final version  is available on the party website here, although readers are advised that it may be wise to save a copy to their local hard drive — the html version of the text that used to be here has vanished down the memory hole, and it’s possible that the PDF was supposed to have been removed as well. It appears to be an orphan file at the moment – there are no internal links to the PDF or the now-missing text, and it doesn’t show up in the list of “key documents”.