The Conservatives have emerged from a well-managed convention with a firm vote of confidence for leader Stephen Harper. They also embraced all manner of policies to offer voters. Delegates passed resolutions re-stating opposition to the Kyoto Protocol as well as the costly gun registry. They approved sound policies to reform health care with a mix of public and private delivery, provide choice in child care options for families, and remove non-renewable natural resource revenues from Canada's equalization system.

All good news. But on the essential issues of lower taxes and less waste, how did the party stack up?

Surprisingly, the party abandoned its policy of enacting a legislated debt repayment plan in favour of a looser proposal to use part of future surpluses to gradually reduce outstanding obligations. In fact, the new Conservative policy on this file - to have a debt-to-GDP ratio under 20 per cent "as soon as possible" - is hardly different than that of the Liberals, who have reduced Canada's net debt by more than $60-billion since balancing the budget in 1998, and remain on track to bring the ratio to 25 per cent.

Canada's $501-billion debt can be eliminated only by establishing annual debt-reduction targets in the budget - as Alberta did to eliminate its provincial debt - and make that target legally binding. But under the Liberals and the Conservatives, Ottawa's debt servicing would continue to chew up $35-billion a year - nearly 20 cents of each tax dollar collected.

In the last election campaign, Mr. Harper told voters he would lower corporate taxes only if businesses were willing to accept fewer subsidies - a fair and principled position. Today, the party's position on handing out tax dollars to big business is muddled. Ottawa spends $4-billion a year on corporate welfare, and it is unclear if the Conservatives oppose the practice. The soon-to-be announced Bombardier subsidy package, expected to top $700-million, will be the party's big test on this file.

As for regional development, a resolution approved in a convention workshop proposed that regional development agencies for Quebec, the East coast, northern Ontario and the West be phased-out and replaced with lower tax regimes. Unfortunately, at the urging of Atlantic MPs, the Conservatives killed this sensible resolution. Like the Liberals, they now appear to wholeheartedly support using tax dollars to buy votes in so-called have-not regions. With the departure of Nova Scotia's Scott Brison to the Liberals, no Atlantic MP is prepared to make the tough but necessary case that regional development hurts the development of local economies in the long run.

The outlook for tax cuts is assuredly better. In the recent federal budget, the Liberal government used an eyedropper for tax relief and a fire hose for spending. The Conservative party, by contrast, has made lower and fairer taxes the cornerstone of its policy manifesto.

At the convention, Conservative delegates also adopted policies to allow income splitting as a way to end the tax bias against single-income families, as well as a Canadian Taxpayers Federation-inspired proposal to dramatically raise both the personal income tax exemption and the spousal exemption in order to remove low-income Canadians from the tax rolls altogether. Other measures will encourage investment and risk-taking by lowering capital gains taxes.

The Tories also vowed to cut job-killing payroll taxes. This would help tackle Canada's high unemployment rate, which remains stuck at 7 per cent. All told, the tax policies embraced by the Conservatives are pro-family, pro-middle class and pro-growth.

There was less talk of controlling the size and scope of the federal government. Indeed, party delegates supported spending tax dollars on promoting multiculturalism, subsidizing home ownership with an income support program, and providing more and ever-rising levels of foreign aid to Third World nations.

Such divergent policies suggest that Mr. Harper's Conservatives are unsure of themselves, and remain fearful that they might offend Canadians. The party leadership will need to prioritize its policies, and one hopes that, as it gains confidence, it will reverse some of the backtracking that took place over the weekend.

When the British Conservatives were pressed in the mid-1970s on what the party represented, Margaret Thatcher plunked down Friedrich von Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty and declared: "This is what we believe." Before the next election, Mr. Harper will need to do the same if the Conservatives hope to move from a government-in-waiting to the real thing.