Marilyn Gladu and the script she can’t stop reading

MP Marilyn Gladu’s recent rhetoric prioritizes imported political talking points over the local realities of Sarnia-Lambton. This performance of fear suggests a preference for foreign policy agendas over the specific needs of our community.

Marilyn Gladu is back in Ottawa and, as usual, she is up to more of the same political double-talk. In her latest video update, she is not really talking to us. She is performing a script. It is a "tough on crime" and "big military" highlight reel that feels like it was written in a D.C. boardroom and handed to her to read for the folks back home.

She is claiming "murderers are walking the streets" and that people are getting "reduced sentences because of their race." It is the kind of alarmist rhetoric she has used before to scare us into voting for a government that promises to "protect" us from dangerous people. But let’s be honest: she isn’t describing the reality of Sarnia-Lambton.

Gladu is taking a run at the Gladue Principles, which are restorative justice measures meant to address real, systemic trauma. She calls them "ridiculous" because they do not fit the American carceral model she is trying to sell us. This approach ignores the structural issues in our justice system in favour of a more punitive framework.

Then there is the sudden demand for "battleships." Gladu is acting like a pro-bono lobbyist for the military-industrial complex, pushing for billions in offensive hardware to hit a 2% NATO target. Never mind that we already hit that target in 2025 by counting the Coast Guard.

It turns out she is less interested in maritime safety for Canadians and more interested in seeing our tax dollars fund American interests in the Arctic. The most telling part is when she warns we have to be "super careful" about China because "the US is clearly against it." It is a blatant admission of subservience.

Since when did having a big neighbour mean we just hand over our entire foreign policy to them? That is not the language of a representative; it is the language of a vassal state. We have spent decades on this setting, including fear-mongering about crime, deregulating for profit, and following whatever script the empire hands down.

This approach has not made us better; it has just made us scared. Sarnia deserves a voice that actually sounds like Sarnia, not an echo chamber for foreign grievance.