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“The Conservative party is the party of rights for all Canadians. It is long past time that we passed this resolution,” Calgary MP Michelle Rempel told delegates, to loud cheers from the more than 1,500 people packed into a ballroom at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Quebec MP Maxime Bernier, who’s running for the Conservative leadership, supported the change and said the issue is “about freedom and respect.”

“It’s about us and it’s about telling to Canadians that you can love who you are, who you want, and that you can be in love, and I hope that also having fair policies at the federal level,” Bernier said.

Ontario MP Kellie Leitch, another declared leadership candidate, said the policy change is “just the right thing to do.”

Calgary MP Jason Kenney, who’s weighing a leadership bid, said eliminating the definition of marriage in the policy declaration was a “no-brainer” because it was resolved by the courts more than a decade ago.

“There’s absolutely no point in having a policy declaration that doesn’t reflect reality either in law or social custom,” Kenney said. “It’s just having the language catch up with reality.”

Former cabinet minister Peter MacKay, a perceived leadership frontrunner who hasn’t ruled out a bid, voted for the change and said he was heartened by the transparent way the party dealt with the issue.

“It’s a message of modernization and moving on, and accepting,” MacKay said. “We have to send that signal that we want everybody to work with us to build a better country. So I’m thrilled with the outcome.”