Social conservatives are pushing to check Poilievre’s power

Anti-abortion group Right Now urges members to vote for more transparency around party nominations, more power for local associations over Poilievre’s team.

A social conservative group is making a push to check Pierre Poilievre’s power as the Conservative party gathers in Québec City this weekend.

The Conservatives are riding high in national polling and head into this weekend’s policy convention — the party’s first in-person convention since 2018 — with a sense of cautious optimism after eight years on the opposition benches.

But it wouldn’t be a Conservative gathering without some good old fashioned intra-party power struggles.

Alissa Golob, the executive director of anti-abortion group Right Now, said her organization is pushing for more transparency around party nominations and more power resting with local riding associations — rather than Poilievre and his team in Ottawa.

The group’s goal is to nominate and elect more anti-abortion politicians to the House of Commons, with an aim of passing legislation to restrict abortion access in Canada.

Unlike previous conventions, however, Golob said social conservatives are focusing their attention less on policy debates and more on the power dynamics between the party “establishment” and local volunteers. Right Now issued a guide for their members on what party rule changes the organization supports, and which they recommend voting down.

“This convention we’re focused more on transparency with specifically the nomination process … and giving more power to the (electoral district associations) and less to the establishment, basically, especially when it comes to candidate selection,” Golob told Global News in an interview.

It’s a change in tactics for social conservative groups, which have significant organizational capacity within the larger Conservative movement and have played key roles in the party’s recent leadership contests.