PM Mark Carney's Canada

[Northern Light]

Prime Minister Carney launches the Build Communities Strong Fund and announces the first tranche of projects

In Budget 2025, the Government of Canada announced the Build Communities Strong Fund – a $51 billion investment to build the infrastructure that Canadians rely on every day.

www.pm.gc.ca

Prime Minister Carney launches the Build Communities Strong Fund and announces the first tranche of projects

****

Delivering on this commitment, today, the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, officially launched the Build Communities Strong Fund – and announced its first project – the new Embleton Community Centre and Park in Brampton, Ontario. This is a $64 million investment to build what will become a 175,000-square-foot community centre with a pool, gymnasium, fitness centre, childcare facility, as well as various community spaces and outdoor recreational amenities. This is the first of a series of 13 projects under the Build Communities Strong Fund across the country – with $300 million in federal funding and more to come in the weeks ahead. In addition to the Embleton Centre and Park, the first tranche of projects can be found here.

At the high level, this is just a re-announcement of the money in the last budget, itself a repackaging of previously promised dollars from the Trudeau years.

At the detail level, there's nothing wrong with a great Community Recreation Centre, Though it hardly requires federal dollars to build, and it will not advance national interests or even tackle key strategic concerns around affordable housing, commute times and health waits.

In Brampton, housing details aside, the clear priorities are accelerating the LRT extension north to DT Brampton, the Queen Street BRT, Improvements to the GO Kitchener corridor which allow for 30M or better, 2-way, all-day service to Mt. Pleasant and 15M or better service to Bramalea, as well as planning for a new full service hospital and accelerating construction of the current Peel Memorial project.

I'm not yet discounting the positive potential of the Carney government; but my cynicism is ramping up as I see things like this.

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

Terrebonne byelection: 20% voter turnout in advance polls


Almost 38,000 people voted in the advance polls in three by elections that could give Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals a majority government, with the highest advance turnout in Terrebonne. Preliminary data from Elections Canada says 18,200 people in the Quebec riding cast ballots in advance elections, which amounts to almost 20 per cent of people on the voters’ list. The Toronto area ridings saw lower degrees of voter turnout at the advance polls, with 10,300 ballots already cast in Scarborough Southwest and 9,400 in University — Rosedale. Both the Liberals and Bloc Québécois have been making a strong push in Terrebonne, where a single vote gave Liberal Tatiana Auguste the victory over Bloc incumbent Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné last year. In February, the Supreme Court of Canada annulled the result of that vote, citing a clerical error on the return address on mail-in ballots.

The Toronto area byelections are being held to replace former cabinet ministers Chrystia Freeland and Bill Blair, both of whom resigned to take other opportunities.​

 

[Mihairokov]

Difficult to say whether a high advance poll GOTV is better for the LPC or for the BQ in Terrebonne. They're close enough in polling that it may just be a wash.

 

[christiesplits]

Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu from Sarnia is crossing the floor to the Liberals.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-mp-marilyn-gladu-crosses-floor-to-liberals-9.7156167

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Longtime Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu crosses floor to join Liberals​

From https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/longtime-conservative-mp-marilyn-gladu-crosses-floor-to-join-liberals/article_7916625c-c910-4b93-b71a-e817efd0ea25.html

The Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong MP’s seat hands Carney a majority whether or not Liberals win the Quebec riding of Terrebonne in Monday’s byelections.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal tent is expanding — pulling at the seams and turning it a slightly purple shade.

Wednesday, Carney welcomed to the Grits’ fold Marilyn Gladu, the four-time Conservative MP for what’s now called Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong. She is the fifth floor crosser, the fourth Conservative, and one seat that hands Carney a majority whether or not the Liberals win the Quebec riding of Terrebonne in next Monday’s byelections.

Gladu is well known on Parliament Hill for her social conservative stances and her collegial style. She is charming, co-operative, and a vocal MP who handily won her riding with more than 50 per cent of the vote last spring.

In 2016, Maclean’s magazine named her the most collegial MP and described her as a “loyal Conservative who consistently works across party lines.” She won the award again in 2020. She’s had two private member’s bills become law, the first established a national framework for palliative care, the second helped secure employee pension protection after companies declare bankruptcy. She chairs the Status of Women committee, and up until a few minutes ago, was Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s shadow minister for civil liberties.

Her floor crossing Wednesday is likely to surprise Poilievre and his team.

After all, in 2020, Gladu ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada but was disqualified from the race (which Erin O’Toole eventually won) after the party refused to grant her an extension to reorganize signature-drives cancelled by pandemic orders, or halve the $300,000 entrance fees due to COVID-19. “Nobody could plan for a pandemic, that much is clear. But I was surprised to see my own party work against me to keep me from the ballot,” Gladu is quoted telling her local paper, The Journal. “I can’t say I’m not thoroughly disappointed in the party.”

During the pandemic, Gladu was embroiled in controversy for promoting, in an April 2020 radio interview, “hydroxychloroquine, with azithromycin and zinc sulphate” as an effective treatment for COVID-19 and urging a swift return to work. “Every death is tragic but the reality is more people are dying of suicide, more people are dying from cancer and smoking and we don’t shut the economy down for that,” she said. On social media, she said, her comments were taken out of context.

After the 2021 election, Gladu was also forced to apologize by O’Toole’s office after saying on CTV that the virus that causes COVID-19 didn’t have the same frequency risk as polio. She had been appearing as the face of her then party’s civil liberties caucus, formed to defend the rights of the unvaccinated.

She is critical of vaccine mandates, vaccine status disclosure requirements, and up until last month, questioned the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act against convoy protesters in Ottawa, arguing it violated their Charter rights and opposed the federal government’s continued effort to defend the measure in court.

Gladu has also been critical of Carney for proposing to remove a religious exemption to the Liberals’ hate crime bill, which she said “would infringe on religious freedom of people of faith all across the country.” She has criticized the Liberals’ approach to immigration and gave Carney’s first budget a “D” Grade, for doing little for seniors and students while continuing to drive up spending and inflation.

But if Conservatives are surprised, Liberals will be stunned. In addition to her opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates — upon which the 2021 election was prosecuted — Gladu opposed many of her new party’s tenets.

She opposed the Liberals’ conversation therapy ban, bill C-6, raising concerns it would criminalize pastoral care and prayer. She voted to ban “sex-selective” abortions — a bill the Liberals unanimously opposed in 2021, arguing it was another Conservative effort to try to “legislate women’s bodies” and an “example of the rising power of the anti-choice movement across our country.”

Since 2014, through then-Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s edict, “incoming” Liberal MPs are expected to vote in favour of a woman’s right to choose. When she ran for the Conservative leadership, Gladu said she would allow CPC MPs to introduce private member’s bills to restrict abortion, but would not introduce government legislation — since that was Conservative policy. She suggested Tory MPs that pressed the issue were unlikely to be successful since 77 per cent of Canadians want access to abortion services and their Charter rights respected.

“But in a democratic state, I think we have to allow people to talk about anything,” she told Global.

She is on the record supporting same sex marriage and walking in gay pride parades, saying: “It’s important that every part of the community feels loved and accepted, and I think as Canadians that we should stop dividing ourselves and pitting one group against another, we have to stand up for everyone’s rights and freedoms.”

A free-speech advocate, she called on the Liberal government to scrap the Online Streaming Act (C-11) — which, she said, controlled what people see and say online — and C-18, the Online News Act, which forced online giants to compensate journalistic organizations in Canada. She is also on the record opposing the Liberals’ clean fuel standards and the industrial carbon price — which Carney plans to increase. And prior to becoming an MP, she supported the Conservatives’ plan to ban the niqab from citizenship ceremonies — a move the court found illegal during the 2015 election.

But as a distinguished engineer with leadership positions with large international businesses (Dow Chemical and Suncor), Gladu was also critical of former prime minister Stephen Harper’s move to muzzle scientists and scrap the long-form census. She has raised concerns about Canada’s global competitiveness and said she ran for office to be a voice for change.

“Everybody brings some talent with them to Parliament,” she told MacLean’s. “Don’t be afraid to bring it forward, speak up and to try to change things. One person really can change how things are done.”

Gladu’s decision Wednesday begs larger questions for each major party leader. If Poilievre cannot hold on to Gladu — a decades-long Conservative, in an apparent safe seat — which MPs can he hold on to?

And with Carney’s warm embrace of Gladu, what distinguishes this Liberal party — leader aside — from its Conservative opponent?
Those will be interesting questions for Liberal delegates to ponder when they gather in Montreal later this week for Carney’s first Grit convention.

 

[Mihairokov]

Gladu!? That riding's been CPC ever since that party was formed.

 

[Richard White]

Gladu!? That riding's been CPC ever since that party was formed.

Barring an upset, it will be liberal until 2029 as well.

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu from Sarnia is crossing the floor to the Liberals.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-mp-marilyn-gladu-crosses-floor-to-liberals-9.7156167

A huge blow to Poilievre's leadership cause this lady is a bit of a nutcase. If even she senses the CONservatives are going nowhere under Poilievre's leadership... it's game over for him.

 

[Richard White]

A huge blow to Poilievre's leadership cause this lady is a bit of a nutcase. If even she senses the CONservatives are going nowhere under Poilievre's leadership... it's game over for him.

My guess is that if Carney gets his majority government on Monday via conservative defections he will be forced to resign.

He did win the recent leadership vote but I don't see how he can remain if enough of his MPs defect to give the LPC a majority. That is as big of a non-confidence vote in his leadership that you can get.

 

[FullMetalEngineer]

At the detail level, there's nothing wrong with a great Community Recreation Centre, Though it hardly requires federal dollars to build, and it will not advance national interests or even tackle key strategic concerns around affordable housing, commute times and health waits.

Recreation and healthcare are connected. Physical activity reduces health problems. The programming and facilities at these centres also keeps youth out of trouble, has impacts to crime.
The west side of Brampton can hopefully stop competing against the infrastructure east of the 410 in Bramalea, they have delayed reconstruction of our demolished centres and gifted away spaces for Embleton to be fast tracked.

The feds have a history of deploying funds in the past for hundreds of children's playgrounds in Brampton, renovating the heavily used Springdale rec centre.

I personally think the province should reimburse us for gifting away the $50M Bramalea Civic Centre for TMU Medschool.

 

[Full Metal Junkie]

if Carney gets his majority government on Monday via conservative defections he will be forced to resign.

That would only be true if the man had any sense of shame and dignity in his body. Therefore, I don't expect him to resign.

 

[Richard White]

That would only be true if the man had any sense of shame and dignity in his body. Therefore, I don't expect him to resign.

Yes but when the lanterns and pitchforks come out he won't have a choice.

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

That would only be true if the man had any sense of shame and dignity in his body. Therefore, I don't expect him to resign.

He's not gonna have much of a choice if 9 more MPs cross the floor, as the rumours swirling suggest. He lost his communications director yesterday as well. It's just gotten embarrassing to watch the CONservatives.

 

[Full Metal Junkie]

Yes but when the lanterns and pitchforks come out he won't have a choice.

Yes, he will just swat away the criticism and make take a piss on dissenters. Like he's always done.

 

[Northern Light]

Recreation and healthcare are connected. Physical activity reduces health problems. The programming and facilities at these centres also keeps youth out of trouble, has impacts to crime.
The feds have a history of deploying funds in the past for hundreds of children's playgrounds in Brampton, renovating the heavily used Springdale rec centre.

You're not hearing me argue against the virtues of recreation centres; I'm simply arguing this is a poor use of Federal funds. Brampton can afford to fund its own Rec. Centres.

The same argument could apply to bike lanes or bikeshare or virtually anything tangentially related to physical activity. Which again, I'm all in favour of......but its just not efficient to fund that from federal dollars.

I personally think the province should reimburse us for gifting away the $50M Bramalea Civic Centre for TMU Medschool.

Don't disagree.