The Liberal Party of Canada, the country’s oldest federally registered party, has endorsed a resolution calling for the legalization and regulation of marijuana in Canada. You can read the non-binding resolution here. From Winnipeg Free Press:

Federal Liberals are taking some risky departures from the cautious political norm in a bid to put their once-mighty party back on the electoral map.

Sunday, they overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for the legalization and regulation of marijuana — a position immediately endorsed in principle by interim leader Bob Rae, although it remains to be seen how, or if, the resolution translates into a platform plank for the next election.

This is an important step forward for the marijuana reform movement. While the Liberal party’s historically poor showing in the 2011 federal election caused them to drop to third place behind the first place Conservatives and second place New Democrats, the Liberal Party dominated politics in Canada during much of the 20th Century.

To an America not familiar with Canadian politics this would be roughly equivalent to the Democratic national convention adopting a non-binding resolution in favor of marijuana legalization.

There is no guarantee the Liberal Party leadership will make this part of their platform during the next federal election, but there is at least some reason to hope they might. The Liberal Party needs to be very worried about losing even more of their left leaning supporters to the New Democrats, which after the last election is now the largest opposition party. In addition, the next federal election in Canada will likely not take place until 2015. If current trends hold up the people of Canada should grow even more supportive of marijuana legalization by the next election.