A bag of pins stating "End Supply Management" sits outside the Conservative national convention in Halifax on Thursday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese

HALIFAX — Efforts to have a vote on abolishing supply management were denied on the Conservative convention floor Friday, just one day after Maxime Bernier launched a divisive attack on the party for being too afraid to tackle sacred cows.

Delegates were given three hours Friday afternoon to work through 26 resolutions addressing economic development and trade. It was standing room only. There were repeated calls from party organizers for more chairs for voting delegates.

Phasing out supply management was the last resolution on the list – an idea that has been championed by Bernier and other libertarian conservatives, many of whom were in the room.

Bernier made an explosive exit from the Conservative party on Thursday during press conference in Ottawa on Thursday. The party’s position, and its unwillingness to engage in debate on supply management, was one of the reasons he quit.

Despite his departure, Conservative officials, including leader Andrew Scheer, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other MPs, have publicly insisted the party remains united.

That united front frayed somewhat in Halifax Friday – with Bernier supporters visibly frustrated about how the policy debate was being handled.

“We want to stay in this party,” Peter McCaffery, a delegate from Calgary shouted. “This is about more than one person.”

Another delegate was spotted throwing his Conservative Party of Canada hat on the ground and stomping on it in frustration. Several others shouted “shame!” and “vote! vote! vote!”

McCaffery told iPolitics after the session ended that he had spotted party staff members, who he said are wearing white lanyards rather than the blue lanyards of delegates, engaging in delay tacts and instructing people to intervene in the earlier debates.

Those observations were raised by another delegate, Matthew Bexte online. “Would have been nice if someone with a white lanyard wasn’t telling interns to go stall at the mic,” he tweeted.

Would have been nice if someone with a white lanyard wasn’t telling interns to go stall at the mic. — Matthew Bexte (@3conomic) August 24, 2018

The chair of the session repeatedly asked delegates wearing white and yellow lanyards to exit the voting area and reposition themselves on the room’s periphery so that voting members could have a seat.

“Every single Conservative convention ends with resolutions that don’t get debated and people being disappointed about it,” Brock Harrison, Scheer’s director of communications, said.

“We didn’t get through our constitutional resolutions earlier in the day – it’s very common, he said, noting party rules state between 20-25 resolutions will be debated at convention.

“The ranking process was entirely transparent and grassroots and the rankings reflect that.”

Asked whether he would leave the party, McCaffery – who supported Bernier in the leadership – said he was going to have to think “long and hard” about whether he planned to stay.

Ending supply management was a key pillar in Bernier’s leadership campaign in which ‘Mad Max’ came second. A year later he roiled his caucus colleagues by releasing a chapter from a book about the campaign that railed against the supply management system and suggested Scheer only won party leadership with the help of “fake” Conservatives from Canada’s powerful dairy lobby.

The order of the resolutions had been set by party officials before the convention began – a reality the overseer of the break out session cited repeatedly Friday in response to numerous efforts by delegates to move the supply management resolution up the list. Motions to speed up debate of other resolutions and extend the session were also put forward – all denied.

In the end, delegates only got to debate and vote on 20 of 26 resolutions. Phasing out supply management was one of the resolutions that didn’t make it to the floor – a result that effectively kills its chances of being referred to the national plenary hearing Saturday. There, members will select new policy resolutions – drawn from Friday ‘s break out sessions – to add to the party’s policy positions.

In a tweet Friday evening, Bernier waded into the debate and urged Conservatives who were unhappy to join him as he starts a new party.

“To all those who feel let down by this party, I say: You will be let down again and again. Don’t waste your time. It’s time for a REAL conservative party defending REAL conservative values. The sooner this gets settled, the more chances we will have to defeat Justin Trudeau,” Bernier tweeted.

“Conservatives are supposed to stand for free markets, not government supported cartels that put politicians in their pockets. We must offer Canadians a real conservative option,” he said in a separate tweet. The Quebec MP is not attending the Convention in Halifax.

Opponents of supply management say it hurts consumers, an argument vehemently refuted by the dairy, egg and poultry industry and supply management supporters.

Scheer has said repeatedly he supports supply management, which regulates the production of diary, eggs and poultry in Canada. The official party position, as well, supports supply management.