The bedrock conservative issue of the death penalty...

The bedrock conservative issue of the death penalty in Canada had been abandoned by the new Conservative party in its policy platform for the June 28, 2004 election. The party's law-and-order positions were silent on capital punishment, a departure from the old Reform party's position in the 1997 campaign that there should be a national referendum on the fractious issue, and Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day's contention in 2000 that the death penalty was justified in some cases.
"I've made it very clear I won't be proposing any kind of death penalty legislation or any referendum on that during this election," Conservative leader Stephen Harper said. "I've said very clearly" that the death penalty and the issue of abortion "are not issues for the first Conservative government."
The newly merged Conservative party had made the political calculation that issues such as abortion and capital punishment were best left off the party platform and decided by free votes in Parliament. Party justice critic Vic Toews, formerly a Manitoba Conservative justice minister and later a member of the Canadian Alliance, said that the new party was too divided on the death penalty to have an official policy.
"I don't know that within our party we would have a clear consensus on that," said Mr. Toews. "Those kinds of issues simply have so much to do with matters of personal morality and also representing constituents. I don't see that kind of an issue being good in terms of party policy."
Mr. Toews said he would poll his constituents on the death penalty if the issue ever came to the House of Commons for a vote. "I think it's too important of an issue for me as an individual to say simply that this is what I will or will not do," he said.
A public opinion survey on Canadian attitudes toward capital punishment had not been conducted for several years. Capital punishment was abolished in 1975 and efforts to have it reinstated were rejected by MPs in a free vote 12 years later.