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Smith and Hunter — candidates for Drayton Valley-Devon and Taber-Warner — helped pen the document while part of the Wildrose Party’s internal family and social values committee. It argued that conversion therapy is a “psycho-social and religious practice” which the government has no business banning.

The document was sent to a number of party members, according to emails also obtained by Postmedia.

“To address the upcoming meeting between David Eggen and Harvest Baptist, the family and social values committee has prepared a brief on possible policy positions we could take on this issue,” wrote Tim Dyck, then-policy director for Wildrose.

Dyck, who attached the document to his email, was later appointed to the UCP policy committee.

A second version of the document obtained by Postmedia, dated February 2017, says at the top it was edited by UCP Chestermere-Strathmore candidate Leela Aheer, then a Wildrose MLA.

The updated document removes the line describing conversion therapy as a “psycho-social and religious practice,” but asserted that supporting a school that would “practice conversion therapy on young children” was simply “supporting the fact that all Albertans have the right to freedom of assembly and association.”

In a statement sent to Postmedia late Saturday, Aheer said, “I was not in any way the author or editor of this document in question.”

Aheer’s statement is the only response provided by the UCP after multiple requests for comment on the two documents.