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On July 1, Canada Day, speculation percolated in Sarnia, Ont.: Would Conservative-now-Liberal MP Marilyn Gladu show up for the parade?

Spoiler alert: Gladu the turncoat was mercifully absent.

In April, Gladu became the fifth floor-crosser to join the Mark Carney Liberals. But Gladu’s crossing was surely the most shocking.

We say this because Gladu was perhaps the single most conservative MP in the entire Conservative Party. For example, she was openly pro-life and pushed to reopen the abortion debate. She unapologetically backed the truckers and the Freedom Convoy, and she was against the COVID-19 forced vaccinations and lockdowns.

Gladu is (or was) the polar opposite of a Liberal. Gladu joining the Liberals would be akin to climate change kook Stephen Guilbeault joining the Conservatives. It’s that crazy.

And talk about hypocrisy: Marilyn Gladu once said that the whole point of being a member of Parliament is “to represent your constituents.”

In that regard, in the last federal election, the constituents of Sarnia-Lambton gave Gladu a clear mandate when she ran for re-election as a Conservative. Galdu captured 53.1% of the vote versus 37.9% for the Liberal candidate.

Amazingly, Gladu recently voiced strong opinions about those MPs who decided to cross the floor. If such a thing happens, Gladu said, then voters “deserve a chance to have a redo.”

But as the saying goes, that was then, and this is now. She is no longer keen on a “redo” byelection in her riding. Why? Because she’d likely lose in a landslide.

And in the department of plenty of blame to go around, the Mark Carney Liberals seemingly have absolutely no problem welcoming Gladu into the fold, even though she is the sort of Conservative who would be mocked by the Liberals for her viewpoints.

This is the same party that has a policy that blocks pro-life candidates from running under the Liberal banner. But yet again, that was then, and this is now as Mark Carney remains committed to getting that coveted majority government — a majority the Canadian electorate denied him in last year’s federal election (but seriously, who cares what the little people have to say?).

So the Liberals will park their principles when it comes to Carney manufacturing the political equivalent of a hostile takeover.

On July 1, we visited Sarnia to see if Gladu would indeed show up for the town’s Canada Day parade. Speculation was rife that she would attend as she always had in the past. Alas, it turned out that Gladu was a no-show.

Imagine that: The sitting MP did not dare show her face in her own riding on July 1. Was it due to fear that the Sarnia Canada Day parade would turn into a modern-day version of Cersei’s “walk of shame” from Game of Thrones? We think so, given the understandable rage amongst constituents regarding her shocking betrayal…