Hypocrisy alone is not persuasive
Highlighting a lack of Gladu principles cuts both ways.
We’re hours removed from longtime Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu officially crossing the floor to join Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal caucus, having cited concerns over national sovereignty and the impact of U.S. tariff threats under the Trump administration as her reasoning.
The Sarnia MP opted to become the fifth MP (and the fourth Conservative) to defect to the Liberals since the 2025 election. Her move leaves the governing party just one seat shy of a majority ahead of three critical federal byelections.
The crossing is marked by significant irony, as Gladu had recently supported a petition calling for automatic byelections for any member who switches parties, arguing at the time that voters deserve a redo when a representative abandons their original banner.
Leaving aside the ocean of cynicism presently running beneath surface-level tides that ebb and flow as additional Conservative MPs consider taking those few short steps across aisle, the rapid response from spinners and capital-C Conservatives to pile on Gladu’s now-abandoned social conservative principles, her past support for the Freedom Convoy, or even vaccine autonomy, serves the situation poorly. More than anything, it’s deeply non-persuasive and unproductive.
Yes, an MP that vociferously opposed marijuana legalization, was steadfast in her beliefs to break up pipeline protests, promoted alternative medicines and approaches to COVID-19, and who voted against Bill C-6 now shares a caucus with 80% Trudeau holdovers — and, temporarily, even Steven Guilbeault.
Strange? Absolutely. But are these beliefs to now criticize, and will said criticism of these beliefs now land strongly among the Conservative base? Hardly.
It’s little secret Gladu held Poilievre and his OLO in disrepute. This was personal, not business. And yes, this is “all getting ridiculous,” to borrow from retired CTV host and columnist Don Martin. But to check Twitter right now is to witness a group of operators who were publicly O.K. with Gladu’s principles and eccentricities a day ago, and now her support of the Convoy, for example, is being used as some kind of dunk.
Marilyn Gladu may well be the kookiest and most cynical politician imaginable. When big-C Conservatives hammer that point home after a floor crossing, all it begs is the question: so why was she tolerable until now? Why was Michael Ma’s foreign interference act above-board? Why was Matt Jeneroux’s supposedly mangled personal life off limits up until it was fair game?
Hypocrisy rarely rates as persuasive to voters, but particularly in Canada, a nation that defaults to order, even when it’s nonsensical. Doug Ford is actively campaigning for the Mark Carney majority the P.M. will surely receive within a matter of weeks, and Ford’s still able to cobble together enough of an apathy vote from a Progressive Conservative base with little love for his time at the helm, but with enough concerns about the premier being the lesser of evils.
Justin Trudeau survived a personal addiction to donning blackface, even as a P.M. who was passed around as some race-communist trojan horse to burn churches, kneel before imported American social justice causes, and rewrite the land claims beneath our very feet.