Don Martin: The friendly face of Erin O'Toole's worst nightmare
She’s been christened Canada’s Most Collegial MP by Maclean’s magazine several times, but Marilyn Gladu’s non-stop smile now masks serious long-haul suffering for her Conservative leader boss.
The friendliest MP has become Erin O’Toole’s deadliest foe as Gladu steps forward as the personification of internal caucus sympathy, if not support, for anti-vaccination forces.
As you know by now, Gladu is proposing a “Civil Liberties Caucus” to discuss issues raised by those punished for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
Naturally Gladu insists this isn’t an anti-vaxxer group as much as it is about defending liberties being taken away by the drive to vaccinate all Canadians so this wretched pandemic can be given last rites.
Oh yeah? So where was Gladu’s civil liberties dedication when abortion access was severely curtailed in New Brunswick or when Quebec women were fired from public service jobs for simply wearing a niqab? Nowhere in her Conservative caucus, that’s for sure.
Gladu then proceeded to unfurl nationally televised ignorance on the worst public health crisis of our lives by making the ludicrous comparison of COVID-19 deaths in Canada (29,000 and rising) to polio (500 back in the early 1950s) on CTV’s Question Period last weekend. It took her two days to retract and apologize for her comments, undoubtedly only under extreme duress from the leader’s office.
The subplot to the festering of anti-vaccination sentiment in Parliament are the flurry of petitions being delivered by Conservative MPs – including one demanding the government authorize the use of ivermectin, a horse deworming treatment, to fight COVID-19 in humans over the alarmed objections of just about anybody with a medical license.
Add that lunacy to Conservative-sponsored petitions to declare vaccinations unsafe or an end vaccine passports and you have the bogus building blocks for every anti-vax organization in the world.
This madness puts O’Toole in a helluva dilemma. He can either save himself or save the party.
If he tolerates the anti-vaccinate dissent, he might preserve his leadership from a mutiny of rabblerousers in caucus or at the spring general meeting but kill his longer-term credibility.
If he gives them the boot, he risks creating a breakaway People’s Party caucus in the House of Commons and giving them a podium to re-fracture the Conservatives back into two rival parties.
Between gulps while repeating his scripted non-answers Tuesday, the besieged Conservative leader punted a decision on the fate of the unvaccinated and anti-vax sympathizers to a meeting of his divided caucus next week.
It’s clear what he’s doing.
This is O’Toole playing for time with hopes the crazy caucus idea falls apart under pressure from common sense MPs who understand that having an anti-vaxx splinter in their midst will mean constant Commons condemnation from the Liberals, who smell a majority coming in the next election.
But despite the risks to his resume, this is a clarion call for clear, decisive, zero-tolerance leadership from O’Toole.
Voters didn’t trust O’Toole with a winning mandate in the October election, partly because they were confused about his chameleon shifts from hard-right leadership candidate to middle-ground new leader to full-on moderate hopeful campaigning for the prime minister’s job.
He can’t afford to muddy about on the final push to end the pandemic by tolerating anti-vaccination sympathizers and supporters inside a Conservative team that MUST lead the country by MP example.
The right to be a patient in a hospital where ALL health-care workers are vaccinated trumps fears based on bogus conspiracy theories. Ditto for the right to face vaccinated police, teachers and flight crews.
With our kids on the verge of getting their shots, the final demographic is engaging the push for blanket vaccine coverage in Canada.
Confusion, ignorance and political games are not to be tolerated.
Any encouragement of anti-vaccination argument is a health hazard to all Canadians in general and particularly to politicians allowing it to spread.
That’s the bottom line.
IN DEPTH
Budget 2024 prioritizes housing while taxing highest earners, deficit projected at $39.8B
In an effort to level the playing field for young people, in the 2024 federal budget, the government is targeting Canada's highest earners with new taxes in order to help offset billions in new spending to enhance the country's housing supply and social supports.
'One of the greatest': Former prime minister Brian Mulroney commemorated at state funeral
Prominent Canadians, political leaders, and family members remembered former prime minister and Progressive Conservative titan Brian Mulroney as an ambitious and compassionate nation-builder at his state funeral on Saturday.
'Democracy requires constant vigilance' Trudeau testifies at inquiry into foreign election interference in Canada
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified Wednesday before the national public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada's electoral processes, following a day of testimony from top cabinet ministers about allegations of meddling in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. Recap all the prime minister had to say.
As Poilievre sides with Smith on trans restrictions, former Conservative candidate says he's 'playing with fire'
Siding with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on her proposed restrictions on transgender youth, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre confirmed Wednesday that he is against trans and non-binary minors using puberty blockers.
Supports for passengers, farmers, artists: 7 bills from MPs and Senators to watch in 2024
When parliamentarians return to Ottawa in a few weeks to kick off the 2024 sitting, there are a few bills from MPs and senators that will be worth keeping an eye on, from a 'gutted' proposal to offer a carbon tax break to farmers, to an initiative aimed at improving Canada's DNA data bank.
Opinion
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
opinion Don Martin: The doctor Trudeau dumped has a prescription for better health care
Political columnist Don Martin sat down with former federal health minister Jane Philpott, who's on a crusade to help fix Canada's broken health care system, and who declined to take any shots at the prime minister who dumped her from caucus.
opinion Don Martin: Trudeau's seeking shelter from the housing storm he helped create
While Justin Trudeau's recent housing announcements are generally drawing praise from experts, political columnist Don Martin argues there shouldn’t be any standing ovations for a prime minister who helped caused the problem in the first place.
opinion Don Martin: Poilievre has the field to himself as he races across the country to big crowds
It came to pass on Thursday evening that the confidentially predictable failure of the Official Opposition non-confidence motion went down with 204 Liberal, BQ and NDP nays to 116 Conservative yeas. But forcing Canada into a federal election campaign was never the point.
opinion Don Martin: How a beer break may have doomed the carbon tax hike
When the Liberal government chopped a planned beer excise tax hike to two per cent from 4.5 per cent and froze future increases until after the next election, says political columnist Don Martin, it almost guaranteed a similar carbon tax move in the offing.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
India's foreign minister reacts to murder charges, claims Canada welcomes criminals
India's Foreign Affairs Minister accused Canada of welcoming criminals from his country in response to the RCMP's recent arrests in a homicide that has roiled tensions between the two countries.
15-year-old boy stabbed in Ottawa on Thursday dies
A 15-year old boy who was critically injured after a stabbing in Nepean on Thursday has died of his injuries, Ottawa's English public school board said Sunday.
Dash cam catches moment suspected drunk driver hits parked car, sends it careening into North Shore flower shop
Police say it’s fortunate no one was injured or killed in a collision at North Vancouver’s Park and Tilford shopping centre Saturday evening that sent one vehicle careening into a flower shop and another into a set of concrete barriers outside a Winners store.
Actor Bernard Hill, of 'Titanic' and 'Lord of the Rings,' has died at 79
Actor Bernard Hill, who delivered a rousing cry before leading his people into battle in 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' and went down with the ship as the captain in 'Titanic,' has died.
'A tiny city:' Pro-Palestinian campus protesters organize for another week
Pro-Palestinian activists have set up tents at universities in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal, following a wave of similar protests at campuses in the United States linked to the Israel-Hamas war.
Lawsuit against Meta asks if Facebook users have right to control their feeds using external tools
Do social media users have the right to control what they see — or don't see — on their feeds?
A Holocaust survivor will mark that history differently after the horrors of Oct. 7
This year's Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins on Sunday evening in Israel, carries a heavier weight than usual for many Jews around the world.
Princess Anne lays wreath at Battle of Atlantic ceremony; honours late Queen
Princess Anne saluted Canadian veterans and current forces members and honoured her late mother during separate ceremonies Sunday in Victoria as she wrapped up a three-day British Columbia West Coast royal visit.
El Nino weakening doesn't mean cooler temperatures this summer, forecasters say
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Local Spotlight
15-year-old boy stabbed in Ottawa on Thursday dies
A 15-year old boy who was critically injured after a stabbing in Nepean on Thursday has died of his injuries, Ottawa's English public school board said Sunday.
'A tiny city:' Pro-Palestinian campus protesters organize for another week
Pro-Palestinian activists have set up tents at universities in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal, following a wave of similar protests at campuses in the United States linked to the Israel-Hamas war.
Twin Alberta Ballet dancers retire after 15 years with company
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
Here's how one of Sask.'s largest power plants was knocked out for 73 days, and what it took to fix it
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
Quebec police officer anonymously donates kidney, changes schoolteacher's life
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Canada's oldest hat store still going strong after 90 years
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Road closed in Oak Bay, B.C., so elephant seal can cross
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.