Thread by @Justin_Ling

It's the main event at #cpc18 — the policy plenary. I'm going to do a few updates as interesting things come up.

Policy 1: Bring back Energy East. Big endorsement.
2: No national carbon price, leave environment policies to the provinces, no "federal interference or federal penalties or incentives." Basically the entire room votes for it.

There's gonna be lots of other policies that are perfectly reasonable, but not terribly exciting — give the North more power to develop itself, simplify the tax code — if you want updates on those, I recommend watching CPAC.

Some of the more contentious policy issues up now. Here's the one being voted on. It's about an even split in the room. (Underlined text is what's being added to the existing policy book.)

That policy — to specifically exclude abortion from Canada's foreign child and maternal health programs — passes.

And now what promises to be the most controversial policy — deleting Article 65.

It would strike out the following section of the existing policy book:

"A Conservative Government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion"

One Quebec delegate tells the crowd "the government should stay the hell out of people's private lives!" and gets very enthusiastic applause.

I spoke to some social conservatives last night who were cryptically optimistic about this vote.

Oh, and the vote is pretty even. It *looks* like the motion, which would delete the moratorium on abortion policy, will pass.

I was wrong! The motion is defeated. Conservative Party will continue its policy of banning legislation or restrictions on abortion.

Yay: 43%
Nay: 57%

And now a motion on "compelled speech," which isn't a thing. The policy would recognize compelled speech, which isn't a thing, as a Charter violation, even though it's not a thing.

(The legislation that supposedly implemented compelled speech, which again isn't a thing, simply extended Human Rights Act protections on the basis of gender identity. You can still be rude to trans people, under the law, just like you can still be rude to gay people.)

Anyway, one young Conservative delegate just made exactly that point, encouraging everyone to support free speech while also noting that compelled speech isn't a thing.

And now a policy on harm reduction...

...for pornography.

A woman gets to the mic: "The state has no business in our browsing history!" How about we focus on the opiate epidemic, she posits.

We are now on to a recorded vote on the resolution to regulate and restrict access to pornography, policy number [giggles] 69.

Defeated
For: 47%
Against: 53%

Debate on moving the embassy to Jerusalem has gotten weird, featuring some conspiracy theories around the white helmets and the slogan "Youtube it!"

But also a young activist who delivered a thoughtful speech about Israel and got an enthusiastic round of applause. That was nice.

Can I just say: Never search for it on Youtube. There's never anything to be gained by searching for geopolitical issues on Youtube. Just watch this instead.

Ok, now one of the more controversial policies: Eliminating birthright citizenship.

This really hasn't been discussed in Canada, but this would be a massive change, and would potentially create a statelessness problem. Background: bccla.org/2014/08/born-e…

Alice Wong, an elected MP, up talking about "passport babies." As I pointed out yesterday, evidence that this is a problem is purely anecdotal, and the statistics don't bear out that this is an issue. "WE NEED TO LOOK AFTER OUR OWN BABIES," she concludes.

Deepak Obhrai, also an MP, is against the policy. "We don't get to decide who is a Canadian!" He says.

Goes to an initial vote — close enough to warrant an electronic vote. Looks like it'll pass, but I can't quite tell. (Where I'm sitting gives me a bit of a skewed perspective.)

If this passes, it'll be the single largest policy shift of the whole day.

It carries. I didn't catch the breakdown, but the Conservative Party just voted to support ending birthright citizenship in Canada.

For context, this is a policy that has, thus far, proved too toxic for the Trump administration. It made it through here, at convention, with a pretty cursory chat. thefederalist.com/2018/07/23/end…

As some have pointed out, other European countries have limits on birthright citizenship. And that's true. (They also have the Schengen Zone.) But jus soli has been Canadian policy since it became an independent nation.

I'll be writing a bunch on the convention, and immigration specifically. Keep an eye on @walrusmagazine this week.