Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu has announced the formation of the Civil Liberties Caucus within the Conservative Party to fight against medical tyranny in Canada, but how efficacious the Caucus will be remains questionable.
Currently, the issue of vaccine passports and mandates remains highly pervasive and divisive within the ranks of Conservatives both in and out of office, with some Conservatives saying that such a Caucus is long overdue (and possibly too late). In contrast, others claim that the Caucus will ‘hurt the party’ and agree with Liberals on mass vaccination as the only means of ending the pandemic and lockdowns.
While an internal Caucus to fight for the rights of Canadians on everything COVID is warranted, Gladu has asserted multiple times that she will not use the Caucus to supersede or counter signal Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole’s leadership.
“As I said to numerous media outlets yesterday, the decision to form the Civil Liberties Caucus is not a challenge to the Leader of the Official Opposition’s leadership. I support my leader, as well as his positions on COVID-19,” Gladu said in a statement.
Please see my statement regarding the Civil Liberties Caucus: pic.twitter.com/41Vq9mrGs2
— Marilyn Gladu (@MarilynGladuSL) November 5, 2021
This position raises questions of efficacy regarding the Caucus’s ability to argue for change as it will always defer to O’Toole’s position. If the Caucus says they’re against mandates, but O’Toole says we need them, the Caucus will merely change their position, defeating its reason for even existing.
Moreover, O’Toole’s stance on COVID tyranny was made clear during the 2021 general election: he is clearly for such tyranny. He was only too willing to remove members from the Conservative Party for speaking out against vaccine mandates and passports.
And indeed, today, O’Toole came out to condemn Gladu over her simply making a comparison between polio and COVID to argue that if such health measures aren’t taken to fight polio, such measures may not be warranted for COVID-19.
“In terms of the risk, people that got polio, many of them died, and many of them were crippled, and that is not the same frequency of risk that we see with COVID-19,” she said in an interview with CBC.
“I’m just receiving the information from medical experts that talk about the relative risk. I’m not a doctor myself.”
O’Toole now says that he expects his MPs to unequivocally promote vaccination and leave questions regarding vaccine efficacy and associated topics to the experts.
In other words, he wants Gladu to shut up already — and the Caucus hasn’t even started.
According to Gladu, “The Civil Liberties Caucus will serve as a mechanism to bring forward ideas to the Conservative National Caucus and will not take any position that is contrary to the collective perspective of our Leader and the national caucus.”
Unfortunately, it appears these two positions are totally at odds. It may be impossible to fight against COVID tyranny while also deferring to O’Toole on all things COVID. And with O’Toole’s track record of booting MPs out of the party for dissenting opinions, the longevity of the Caucus, as well as the careers of MPs who make up the Caucus, may be limited.
