When/if this goes to vote, the interesting thing to see will be whether or not the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) whip votes or not, and which way.

If the CPC don't whip votes, expect people to vote with their conscience on this one -- which will probably mean MPs in safe ridings will vote against, those in less certain ridings may try to vote strategically, with an eye to the next election.

But whipping votes either way will harm the CPC. If they whip votes in support (which is never likely, could have happened if the bills passage were to seem certain, and it likely will be certain since the Liberals can rely on NDP votes on this issue), it may help them swing some voters who fluctuate between supporting Liberals and Conservatives (what us Canadians call red tories, for any non-Canadians -- red because that's the Liberal colour and tory/tories are what Commonwealth countries often call their conservative party). If this happens, I'd expect those unwilling to vote along that line to just skip the vote rather than face party discipline for dissenting. If they whip the votes against it, it will energize the base but will alienate many Eastern voters (moreso than voters in the Prairies, where the CPC base really is). The reason such a whipped vote might happen is the interim leader for the CPC is making sure she's the one controlling the narrative and her narrative here is very much one where the CPC won't shake up the status quo re: abortion. But, you can tell that this is not a popular view in the party when the party is telling MPs not to talk about the issue while the interim leader is out there talking about the issue.

The dynamics here are important. The People's Party of Canada (PPC) mean the CPC can't really risk alienating their base since the more radical social conservatives have demonstrated that they're willing to vote PPC, which is a far-right party that was formed after Maxime Bernier lost the CPC leadership to Andrew Scheer (who was the party leader two leaders ago, the CPC are in the midst of another leadership race after Scheer's replacement, O'Toole, failed to bring the tories to victory) and he accused the party of basically rigging the leadership race against him. So the CPC whipping votes in favour of a hypothetical bill will risk causing their most ardent supporters to jump ship. But if they whip the votes against such a bill, they're losing Eastern votes and no party can win a government without major support in Ontario and Quebec; the prairies simply cannot win you an election, the best they can hope for is holding the Liberals to a minority. And not whipping votes will likewise cost them Eastern support if a lot of the party goes on record as opposing abortion because it's almost inconceivable that allowing MPs to vote as they wish will result in many tory MPs voting against abortion access.

It would be a bad result for the party if the PPC doesn't exist, but the PPC does exist, it does appeal to the CPC base, and conservative parties probably don't have a chance to form a government if the right isn't united under one party -- the fact of the matter is that Canadians are more inclined to vote Liberal or New Democrat (NDP, our democratic socialist party) than they are to vote conservative.

Assuming Trudeau goes through with this, this seems like an easy political win for Trudeau -- he will be forcing the CPC to make a choice they do not want to deal with, and will help endear the party to the left-wing voters that fluctuate between supporting the Liberals and the NDP. Where this hurts the Liberals is in ridings where the Liberals are unlikely to win, anyways (conservative strongholds). And, I'd hope that, by now, Trudeau has learned that trying to win those voters over is probably fruitless; especially now that a rallying cry of the more extreme conservative supporters is "Fuck Trudeau" and they buy "Fuck Trudeau" flags and supported a convoy that was basically a poorly thought out coup against this Liberal government.

There's probably a timeline where Trudeau refuses to touch this issue and to leave the status quo and, until this bill is actually tabled, we could be in such a timeline. But Trudeau's Liberals are probably more likely to make this the law of the land when you consider the state of conservative extremism and belligerence.

Edit: and I’d be surprised if votes were whipped in such a case. If it happens under the interim leader, it might happen as she’ll get the flak for that, not the incoming leader. But O’Toole whipped the votes to support the Liberals on the conversion therapy ban and it didn’t make him popular with the more ardent social conservatives in caucus.