Marilyn Gladu is chair of what now?

There’s a joke in here somewhere. A local MP, with a long record of voting against queer rights, refugee protections, and reproductive freedoms, has just been named chair of the […]

There’s a joke in here somewhere. A local MP, with a long record of voting against queer rights, refugee protections, and reproductive freedoms, has just been named chair of the Status of Women Committee.

This would be laughable if it weren’t so sad.

You don’t need to dig deep to find the contradiction. Marilyn Gladu voted against the ban on conversion therapy. She’s publicly questioned trans inclusion in women’s spaces. She’s backed policies that make life harder for immigrants, for low-income parents, and for any family that doesn’t fit a narrow, nuclear ideal. The world she imagines isn’t just from the past: it’s from someone else’s version of the past. And now she’s in charge of advising Parliament on women’s equality in 2025?

Imagine how disrespected you’d have to feel as a woman who has fought for any kind of progress, housing, childcare, consent education, safety from violence, freedom to live as yourself, to look up and see this appointment. It’s like putting someone who doesn’t believe in public healthcare in charge of hospital funding. Oh wait, we’ve done that too.

But here’s the real problem, this isn’t just about hypocrisy or politics, it’s about imagination.

The work of caring for one another, raising children, building homes, supporting survivors, welcoming newcomers, and sharing power, is sacred. And it’s work. It’s the work that makes a future possible. It’s the work that mostly women, and often queer folks and immigrants, have been doing in this city long before anyone thought to call it politics.

To treat that labour with this kind of contempt is embarrassing, not just for Gladu, but for the whole party and for any riding that lets this keep happening.

Because Sarnia isn’t like that. At least not the Sarnia I know. The Sarnia I know is filled with aunties raising their sisters’ kids. With workers advocating for safety and fair pay. With trans teenagers organizing school clubs. With women building food banks from scratch because no one else would. With people who are doing the real work of liberation every day, with no title, no budget, and definitely no committee.

So when someone who has actively opposed that work gets handed a title like Chair of the Status of Women, it’s not just ironic. It’s a warning. If you aren’t working toward freedom for everyone, then you’re not working for any of us.

And you certainly aren’t qualified to lead.