Peter MacKay says he's getting a bad case of deja vu heading into this month's Conservative convention.

In an interview, the defence minister described his exasperation with a passionate debate on party leadership rules that turns up like clockwork at the party's conventions, which are held every two years.

"There's a bit of a refusal to accept the strong will of the party by bringing this forward time and time again," MacKay said in an interview from Brussels.

When MacKay and Stephen Harper agreed to merge the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties in 2003, the PCs insisted that each riding would have an equal say in a leadership vote.

The idea was that regions with huge numbers of members, such as western Canada, could not swamp other areas of the countrysuch as Quebec or Atlantic Canada, where riding associations are smaller. But some elements in the party would like the rules to be closer to a one-member, one-vote system. The NDP has such a system.

"Nobody can describe it as a unifying issue, " MacKay said. "It's divisive. It pulls at old affiliations and old fault lines and I don't think we need that."

Two proposals have turned up in the package of resolutions to be debated at the convention in Calgary starting June 27. One would give more weight to larger ridings in a leadership race, another would go to a straight one-member, one-vote system.

"Democracy is best served when members choose the leader and when leadership candidates seek support from and serve the membership," reads one resolution.

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