Gladu’s Floor Crossing Tests Liberal Ban on Pro-Life Candidate
Image: MP Marilyn Gladu speaks at the 2017 National March for Life, Ottawa. Credit: CLC.
Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), Canada’s national pro-life organization, says former Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu’s acceptance into the Liberal Party may signal a long-overdue softening of the party’s exclusion of Canadians who don’t support Canada’s abortion on demand status quo.
“MP Gladu has a solid record of supporting pro-life bills,” said Jeff Gunnarson, CLC’s National President. “Since Justin Trudeau barred pro-life candidates from running under the Liberal banner in 2014, many Canadians have been shut out of meaningful participation in the party. If Gladu’s move signals that Prime Minister Mark Carney is charting a different course in 2026, that would be welcome news indeed.”
While CLC has not endorsed Gladu as pro-life, her voting record on life-affirming bills is, nevertheless, solid. In June 2021, she voted in favour of pro-life Bill C-233, which sought to outlaw sex-selective abortion. Two years later, she voted for Bill C-311, which would have made it an aggravating circumstance in sentencing to knowingly assault a pregnant woman. Over the years, she has also consistently voted against the expansion of euthanasia. She even spoke from the steps of Parliament Hill during the 2017 National March for Life, an event organized by CLC.
Campaign Life Coalition, a non-partisan political arm of the pro-life movement, anticipates a day when the Liberal Party returns to a more inclusive policy that allows Canadians from all walks of life, including pro-life advocates, to represent their fellow citizens as Liberal candidates.
“Carney dropped Trudeau-era feminist policies in the recent federal budget, and now he’s welcoming an MP into the party with a historically pro-life voting record. Does this mean the Trudeau-era policy barring pro-life Liberals is changing too? Let’s hope so,” said Matthew Wojciechowski, CLC’s Vice President.
Wojciechowski said that the Liberal Party needs to return to being a broader-tent party that represents all Canadians.
“Confusing as this contagion of floor crossings may be, it’s refreshing to see Trudeau’s discriminatory policy losing its iron grip. It’s time for the Liberal Party to become a broader tent and welcome back hundreds of thousands of pro-life Canadians across this great country of ours.”
Gunnarson encouraged MP Gladu to continue voting for the most vulnerable in our society—preborn children and those vulnerable to euthanasia.