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OTTAWA — Any member of Parliament who joins the Liberal caucus must adhere to Liberal values, including support for abortion and LGBTQ rights, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday as he faced questions about his decision to welcome Ontario MP Marilyn Gladu into his caucus.
Gladu joined the Liberal caucus on Wednesday, becoming the fourth Conservative, and fifth opposition MP, to defect to the Liberals since November. Her crossing leaves the government just one seat shy of a majority ahead of three byelections next week.
But Gladu’s past comments and positions as a member of Parliament have raised questions about just how big the Liberal tent has become, with one political expert characterizing the move as “shocking.”
In 2021, Gladu apologized for sharing “misinformation about the severity of COVID-19 and the safety and efficacy of vaccines” during an interview with CTV News. She was also a supporter of the 2022 “Freedom Convoy,” which saw protesters angered by pandemic restrictions block the streets of downtown Ottawa with large trucks.
In 2020, she said she would allow party members to introduce bills to restrict abortion, and in 2021 she was criticized for voting against a Liberal bill that banned conversion therapy. Shortly after that vote she issued a statement saying she “vehemently” opposes conversion therapy and supports the LGBTQ+ community.
At an unrelated news conference Thursday in Montérégie, Que., Carney was asked repeatedly about how Gladu’s previous remarks contradict some bedrock Liberal positions. He consistently replied that becoming a Liberal MP means supporting Liberal values.
“The Liberal party always will support the right of women to choose — always, without question,” Carney said.
The prime minister said all Liberal MPs are “subscribing to the values of the party, and the core element of our mission, which is to build Canada strong for all Canadians.”
The Liberals are presenting Gladu’s defection as an indication that the party and the government welcome a diversity of viewpoints.
“We have our values, our values of solidarity, of inclusivity, of sustainability, of the rights of women, of all the rights in the Charter of Freedoms,” Carney said. “We have those core values. Those values don’t change.
“Others come to support the mission of the party and the government at this crucial time and we are fortunate that they take those decisions, because they bring expertise, they bring perspectives, they bring energy, and they will help us work together.”
A senior Liberal government source with knowledge of the discussions leading up to Gladu’s floor crossing, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the private talks, said communications with her started early in the year and continued for months.
The source said Gladu expressed an interest in the Liberals’ push to get big projects moving and to rebuild the military. Some of those conversations, the source said, were frank discussions about her previous stances on things like abortion and the Freedom Convoy.
The source said when Gladu was told the party would not be bending on its policies, she was quite comfortable with that.
He did say, however, that Gladu will need to have conversations with Liberal MPs who are wary about sharing a caucus with her.
Building trust, the source said, is part of the hard work of finding unity.
The source also said conversations on Gladu joining the Liberals were already well underway before Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre sent an email at the end of March to members of his “shadow cabinet” asking them to show what they had done in their roles. Gladu was the Conservative critic for civil liberties until she crossed the floor.
The Toronto Star first reported on the email on April 3 and said it had been sent to Conservative MPs on March 30.
Asked whether more Conservatives will be joining the Liberals shortly, the source said many more conversations are underway but would not indicate how many, or with whom.
When he was asked about more floor crossers, Carney joked that he is “often the last to know.”
“I will tell you in all seriousness, what has been the case is in each of these circumstances is that the individuals have come to people they know well in the Liberal caucus and expressed an interest in joining,” he said. “And then a conversation is evolved from that and near the end of the conversation is when I’ve met with those individuals. So I can’t tell you more than that, other than to describe the process.”
While Gladu may hold some beliefs at odds with those held by her new colleagues in the Liberal party, her views on climate change appear to be in line with Carney’s approach.
In 2020, Gladu called for a “science-based approach” to climate change and expressed support for a “regulatory and incentivized approach” instead of the Trudeau-era carbon tax.
Poilievre accused Carney of “fabricating a costly majority government through dirty backroom deals” at an unrelated news conference in Richmond, B.C., on Thursday.
“I feel badly for Ms. Gladu’s constituents, the majority of whom voted for our Conservative vision of an affordable and safe Canada,” he said.
He said constituents should be able to launch a petition for a byelection when MPs cross the floor to join another party.
“We need to put people back in charge of their country at the ballot box,” he said.
Political science professor Lori Turnbull said Gladu’s defection to the Liberals is “shocking” given her socially conservative positions, and the party’s previous practice under former prime minister Justin Trudeau of drawing a red line for candidate selection based on abortion and LGBTQ rights.
Turnbull said Carney’s approach appears to show the party moving away from hard ideological lines and toward who is willing to help build up the Canadian economy — something she said isn’t entirely surprising given Carney’s history in the private sector.
“From a little bit of a distance, it looks like good news for the Liberals. But look a little bit closer and it looks like you are growing the party in a way that is not carefully curated,” Turnbull said, adding that it could cause tensions among more progressive Liberal MPs.
Those tensions could also grow if Carney continues to be laser-focused on the economy and lets social issues slip, she said.
Rob Oliphant, an openly gay Liberal MP, said on social media Thursday he was “pleased” to welcome Gladu to the “big tent party.”
“We have discussion. We have debate. We have disagreement. But at our core is a commitment to both social justice and economic prosperity. This proves that there is room for all in building Canada Strong,” he wrote.
Other MPs, including at least one Liberal, have signalled discontent with Gladu joining the caucus.
Former environment minister Steven Guilbeault reacted with a laughing emoji to a meme on social media Wednesday of a woman pouring a large drink, with this caption: “Steven Guilbeault seeing Marilyn Gladu walk into the caucus meeting.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 9, 2026.
— With files from Sarah Ritchie in Ottawa and Morgan Lowrie in Montreal
Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press
