The FPO was best known during the 1980s for its campaigns against censorship and provincial laws that restricted Sunday shopping. Robert Metz, the party's first president, spoke for the FPO in 1987 when he argued that the Sunday shopping debate was fundamentally about freedom of choice for the retailer and consumer. Leading FPO members also opposed legal restrictions on pornography that depicts consensual sex between consenting adults, and opposed the prohibition of marijuana, arguing that the state did not have the right to legislate in such matters.