OTTAWA — The move to merge Canada's two right-of-centre federal parties faces another hurdle this weekend when Tories meet in Ottawa to hash out a ratification process for union with the Canadian Alliance.

It's the kind of internal party mechanics that normally provides all the drama of drying paint. But with the very existence of the Progressive Conservatives on the line, the two-day summit by the 37 members of the PC management committee could have a profound impact on the federal political scene.

The weekend talks, said committee member and MP Scott Brison, are "essential to putting in place a process that not only meets the constitutional obligations of the party, but also reassures a very nervous Progressive Conservative membership that this ought to be supported."

"There's a lot of work to be done."

Tory Leader Peter MacKay negotiated a merger pact with Alliance Leader Stephen Harper that would speed the formation of a new entity called the Conservative Party of Canada, pending ratification by the respective party memberships by Dec. 12.

The marriage proposal has been greeted within Tory ranks by both wild applause and withering criticism.

More than 3,000 new party memberships have been sold since the announcement on Oct. 16. Accolades have rolled in from Alberta Premier Ralph Klein to former prime minister Brian Mulroney.

Yet some party stalwarts have panned the deal.

Senator Lowell Murray published an op-ed piece Thursday that called the merger an Alliance coup.

"The political kingmakers who bankrolled Tom Long, Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper are attempting to buy the Progressive Conservative Party, shut it down, grab its remaining assets and goodwill and replace it with their own political party," Murray wrote.

It's a view shared by more than a few MPs in the Tory caucus and among some management committee members.
However few critics believe the merger can now be stopped, or that there would be much left to save of the Tory party if the deal was quashed.

"The realistic Borotsik says the process is probably too far down the road to really put the brakes on," said Manitoba MP Rick Borotsik, who is violently opposed to merging.

"I would just like to see an open, honest, transparent (ratification) process. Is that too much to ask?"

Both the Tories and the Alliance require a super-majority to make the constitutional changes required for a merger, but there the similarities end.

The Alliance announced this week it will mail ratification ballots to all its members starting Monday. They must be returned by mail postmarked no later than Nov. 27, and the party will announce the results Dec. 4.

The PC management committee must decide how it can meet the party's constitutional requirement for a two-thirds majority vote at a national meeting. The front-running plan heading into the weekend was a "hub and spoke" convention in which satellite groups of riding delegates, selected through a vote among each riding's membership, would be linked by conference call for a virtual national meeting.

Some of the most radical anti-merger forces on the committee believe MacKay had no mandate to negotiate a deal with the Alliance and any ratification process in the proscribed time frame is "a hoax."

"We won't deal with nuts and bolts (of ratification) before we deal with principles and legalities," Marjaleena Repo, a committee member and senior strategist for David Orchard, said in an interview.

Orchard was the third-place leadership candidate whose signed, convention-floor deal last spring gave MacKay the party leadership on condition there be no merger with the Alliance.

The weekend meeting will be "hot and heavy," said Repo, but regardless of the outcome, the party loses.

"It will be very interesting to see what we have on Monday because we will definitely have a discredited leader, no matter what. That is the tragedy of it."