By Don Newman
April 10, 2026
Politicians who worry that the newest Conservative convert to Mark Carney’s Liberals will hold right-wing policy views that are incompatible with the government’s social policy positions have not yet recognized what’s going on.
They rightly perceive that Sarnia Member of Parliament Marilyn Gladu has held views on abortion, same-sex marriage, vaccination mandates and other policies that are counter to what the Liberal Party has held, run on and won elections on for more that a decade.
There is no doubt about that. Gladu has made no secret of her views in the decade she has been a member of Parliament, and in 2020 ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of the Conservative Party.
And yet there Gladu was this week standing with the Prime Minister as he announced that she was joining the Liberal caucus — the fifth MP and fourth Conservative to leave the party they were elected with a year ago to join the Liberals.
Questioned by reporters, Gladu said she will follow Liberal policy on any social policy votes in the House of Commons. Whether there are any in the near future is unlikely. Both same-sex marriage and abortion have been legal in Canada for decades.
Gladu said she was becoming a Liberal to join the Carney team because she wants to be part of the government’s Build Canada agenda. Since becoming Liberal leader and prime minister, Carney has transformed the party from one focused on social policy, political correctness and the environment to a more historically traditional Liberal Party that built pipelines and the St. Lawrence Seaway and kept Canada’s defence commitments.
With Carney’s background as a central banker rather than a partisan politician, if this keeps up, he can present an ever-growing caucus as a form of national unity government.
In its first year in office, the Carney government has moved quickly to put the building blocks in place for a Canadian transformation; The Major Projects Office and the Defence Industrial Strategy among them. The same week that Gladu became the latest floor-crosser, Carney was in Contrecoeur, Quebec, to announce the first project fast-tracked by the office, a $2.3 billion expansion of the Port of Montreal.
The two events in the same week illustrate what Carney is seeking to accomplish: a new consensus in the country on what Canada can and should be. Both at home and in his widely acclaimed speech at Davos earlier this year, Carney has outlined his vision of a more independent, self-sufficient and confident Canada playing a leadership role among a group of likeminded middle power countries.
That is a vision no one in Canada has espoused since Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister in the 1980s. Spurred at least partly by the increasing belligerence of United States President Donald Trump, it is an idea that has been gaining in appeal. All of the five floor-crossers have mentioned some version of that Carney approach as part of the attraction for their moves. There are always rumours in Ottawa. A current one is that there might be more Conservative defections.
That is likely to happen if the Liberals can hide their obvious triumphalism at the recruits they have already gained. With Carney’s background as a central banker rather than a partisan politician, if this keeps up, he can present an ever-growing caucus as a form of national unity government.
But now comes the hard part. The government has to get a lot more shovels in the ground on major projects than just the ones working on the Montreal port expansion. It has a deal to build a second bitumen pipeline from Alberta to the British Columbia coast. It has to deliver a workable trade deal with Trump’s America and deals opening market access in other parts of the world. It has to make decisions on new jet fighters and submarines. It has to start spending $35 billion on Arctic defence and infrastructure. In other words, it has to start producing results.
A majority government created by the floor-crossers and by-election wins will give the Prime Minister up to four years to show progress. By then, it should be apparent to Canadians whether Carney’s vision has materialized.
Policy Columnist Don Newman is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a lifetime member and a past president of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery.
