To say that the announcement that Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu had crossed the floor to the Liberals was a surprise is an understatement. It was a genuinely gobsmacking moment because Gladu is, to be blunt, an absolute loon. She’s Maple MAGA—a Trump lover, who pushed Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as COVID cures. She was a hard-core “convoy” supporter whose seal for their cause had Poilievre create a portfolio of “civil liberties critic” for her to continue to espouse nonsense on their behalf. She opposed the banning of so-called “conversion therapy” and was open to members of her caucus legislating to restrict abortion. She would even talk about how, in her experience as a chemical engineer, she had to deal with Chinese corruption on projects, which is why she would not trust the regime. None of this would seem to endear her to the Liberals in any sense.

I guess Carney has zero standards.A list of Gladu's greatest hits:1) opposing cannabis legalization, she read a poem in the House urging MPs to "keep our great country safe from all the weed."2) in 2020, she suggested using the military to end pipeline protests…bsky.app/profile/thes…

— Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦 (@emmettmacfarlane.com) 2026-04-08T15:08:52.008Z

I’m going to write more about what his means for the Liberals in a longer piece later, but it cannot be understated what this means for Poilievre, because she was very much his people. She represented the base he was trying to court, and in the end, she walked away from him, and her statements once she crossed over were about needing a leader for this critical moment, which one could very much take to mean that Poilievre is not such a leader. The Star spoke to some Conservatives who claim that as many as 40 members of caucus are worried about their seats under Poilievre’s continued leadership, while Chris d’Entremont told CTV that he gets questions from Conservatives about what life is like with the Liberals, and they don’t sound like they’re turned off. If you’re Poileivre, that has to be a loud and clear message that in spite of the vote of confidence he received in his leadership review, his caucus is worried and history shows they won’t be mollified by a grassroots approval—nor should they be. Of course, they’re all busy pledging their loyalty to the party over social media, but things cannot be that comfortable in the caucus room, and it’s a real question as to whether Poileivre has self-awareness or EQ in order to read that room.

With that, I’m going to give the last word to Andrew Coyne. And the Beaverton.

Five reasons MPs keep leaving my party that have absolutely nothing to do with me – Editorial by Pierre Poilievre

— The Beaverton (@thebeaverton.com) 2026-04-08T19:19:23.311Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones damaged a power substation in Odesa, as well as port infrastructure and a civilian vessel in Izmail. Ukrainian drones struck a Russian oil terminal in occupied Crimea.

Good reads:

• Mark Carney had a call with Jeremy Hansen and the crew of the Artemis II mission.
• The federal government doesn’t plan to renew the fund that helps newsrooms hire more diverse journalists, and is restructuring a fund to help combat disinformation.
• Over 3700 federal civil servants have applied for the early retirement incentive.
• The Ethics Commissioner found that the deputy minister of national defence created a position for a friend when she was the deputy minister of immigration.
• One of the Chinese EV companies likely to send product to Canada has been accused of forced labour practices at their factory in Hungary.
• Air Canada’s union says that the federal labour department is not taking the complaints of unpaid work seriously in their investigation.
• The crew at The Logic found and mapped every data centre in the country, as well as proposed new facilities (many of which are not getting off the ground).
• Economists are offering alternatives to helping Canadians with the price of gasoline other than just cutting gas taxes.
• Conservative MP Mike Dawson is still trying to refuse his automatic pay raise, and I just can’t even. (Seriously, you’re making it worse for all MPs).
• Apparently Newfoundland and Labrador doesn’t have political donation limits, so former premier Danny Williams donated $46,000 to the winning PC party.
• Doug Ford’s “special economic zones” legislation (which are Henry VIII powers) is getting challenged in court.
• Matt Gurney makes the case that Trump has acted like an accountability mechanism to force our government into action better than the opposition or the media.
• Althia Raj ponders the various reactions to Marilyn Gladu’s floor-crossing.

Odds and ends:

If this lying doofus bothered to read the StatsCan report, the lowest point of those exports was because auto plants were on extended shutdown to retool production lines. They have since restarted and exports are back up.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-04-08T14:31:51.443Z

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.