One of them included pro marijuana advocates who say Trudeau is moving too slow on his pledge to legalize pot.
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Trudeau, fresh from representing Canada at the G-7 summit in Japan, said that to keep ahead of their political opponents Liberals must modernize their rules to reflect the party’s new stature since its near death after the 2011 election when it finished in third place.
That’s considerably more restrictive than the criteria set out by the Supreme Court. Canada, the High Court past year struck down laws criminalizing physician-assisted suicide for individuals in chronic pain or with terminal illnesses.
Trudeau, who had been in Japan for the G7 summit during the first two days of the convention, argued Saturday that the current, cumbersome constitution “is a product of the era we worked so hard, together, to put behind us: the era of factional battles and hyphenated Liberals, of regional chieftains and behind-the-scenes power-brokers, of the closed, insular thinking that nearly killed this party”.
The draft legislation, introduced by Trudeau’s Liberal government in April, would allow people with incurable illnesses or disabilities to end their lives with a medical professional’s help, but stopped short of extending the right to minors and the mentally ill.
“I am still hopeful that we’re going to be able to reach the June 6 deadline imposed by the Supreme Court”, he said.
The proposal appears to have the support of a number of Liberal MPs and cabinet ministers.
“I think that whenever you consolidate power in such a way that it reduces power at the grassroots level, you’re very much at risk of losing touch”, she said. Others, however, have said that won’t be the case, and are calling for a fulsome debate. “I am not engaged at that level on what will be debated or not”.
That’s in accordance with last year’s landmark Supreme Court ruling, which struck down the ban but suspended the ruling until June 6 to give Parliament time to craft a new law.
However, Robbins said she’d come under “a certain amount of pressure” from senior Liberals to withdraw the resolution in the interests of demonstrating a united front behind the fledgling government’s first important piece of legislation.
“They really don’t want grassroots Liberals to embarrass them”.
Liberals are also sharply divided over proposed changes to the party’s constitution, with some accusing their leaders of heavy-handedness in trying to get it passed.
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The biggest item on the agenda involves not policy but the internal operations of the Liberal party: a proposal to overhaul its constitution to, among other things, do away with the concept of membership, giving anyone willing to register as a Liberal the opportunity to vote in leadership and nomination contests, attend conventions and take part in policy development. He added, however, that failing to do so could lead to uneven access to assisted dying across Canada.
