Conservative Leadership Series： Marilyn Gladu
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Summary
In this episode, I sit down with Conservative leadership candidate Marilyn Gladjaj to talk about her vision for the party and the country. She talks about why she decided to jump into the race, why she's running, and why she thinks she has a chance to win the Tory nomination.
Transcript
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Welcome to the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
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Kicking off a new series today, one that I've talked about in previous shows,
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interviewing all of the Conservative leadership candidates as they crisscross the country,
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talking to them about their visions, not just for the Conservative Party, but also for the country.
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And very pleased to kick off this series by sitting down here in Toronto with Marilyn Gladjew,
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second term Member of Parliament for Sarnia Lampton, and actually one who I usually run into at the London Airport,
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which is a very tiny airport, when your Sarnia Airport, which is even tinier, has let you down.
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So it's good to see you not in the midst of travelling. So thank you very much for taking the time.
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So let's talk about why you got into this race, because in many respects,
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a lot of people have been saying that this is just going to be a coronation.
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And I think as we see the policies and the interviews and the debates soon,
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we're seeing that isn't the case, this isn't lockdown.
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Well, originally when it was clear that Andrew stepped down,
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I looked at what was presenting and I said, this is the same old, same old.
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We can't win on that. We have to get rid of Justin Trudeau.
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He's destroying the country and ruining the economy.
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And to do that, we have to grow the base. So to grow the base, I think we need several things.
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First thing we need is a strong, dynamic leader that can win the hearts of Canadians.
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Second thing we need is policy that is a better balance of fiscal responsibility and social compassion.
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People love what we do as Conservatives when we grow the economy, create good jobs,
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They want us to help with the ailing health care system.
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They want us to come with a credible climate change plan.
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And they want to address issues that Canadians who are having difficulty experience.
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Seniors that can't afford to live, veterans that are homeless.
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And so we're the ones that come with solutions for these things that actually help people.
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And I think that balance is what we need to see.
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So I've obviously had 32 years of global experience as a chemical engineer.
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As the shadow minister of health, who thought she might have been the minister of health
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if we had been elected this last government, I've certainly given thought to our health
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care system and how we can address the challenges we face with an aging demographic and increase
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in chronic disease and situations like the pandemic that faces us today.
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And so my full policy is available on www.marilandgladio.ca.
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And I think that's what this leadership race is about.
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And what kind of policy do we want to take forward?
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I think there's a view that a lot of people hold that social compassion is just a fancy
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way of saying the nanny state or the welfare state and that it's incompatible with fiscal
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Provide that compassionate safety net while also not making everything about government
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I would say, for example, on the seniors topic, there's a lot of poor seniors that have helped
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Right now, they can't get the guaranteed income supplement if they make more than $19,300
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when arguably the poverty line is maybe $27,000 depending on where you live in the country.
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So these kind of misalignments are easily fixed and would take a huge number of seniors out
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If we think about pharmacare, you know, in the last election, interestingly, the 660,000 people
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that don't have a plan live in Ontario and Atlantic provinces where we did not do well.
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For people that don't have a plan, putting them on the existing provincial plans is $2.2 billion
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The cost of putting them on the plan is actually less than the cost of when they don't take
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their medications and they present that emergency or have complicated conditions.
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So these are the kind of areas where a social compassion policy is actually going to help
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But as fiscal conservatives, we're going to do that in a cost-effective way, not the
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$40 billion boondoggle that the Liberals and NDP are talking about.
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But just to clarify, are you saying you support universal pharmacare?
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I think people need to have a plan in Canada, for sure.
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We need to make sure that people can afford their medications.
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But to create a national pharmacare system, I'm totally opposed to.
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First of all, provinces have stated they don't want it.
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And the second thing is $40 billion a year is what that would cost, brought to you by the
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I don't think anyone wants their prescription drugs administered in a similar way.
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So what would a plan look like then that deals with what you've identified as the problem
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that doesn't go down the road that Liberals, not just federally, but even provincially,
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Well, I think there are multiple mechanisms to address the gap that exists in Ontario and
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You could just make a part of the Canada Health Act that it's required for the provinces to
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That way, similar to what other provinces have in place, if people don't have private plans,
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Now, how would that differ from where a lot of the Conservatives are right now very frustrated
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with the federal carbon tax, which is the federal government saying, we are going to
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Well, I think when it comes to the carbon tax, the fact remains it doesn't work.
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BC's had one for over 10 years, and they've reduced 1%.
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But on the jurisdictional aspect, you're saying that you would support the federal government
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making a change that essentially forces provinces to enact a specific policy.
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Well, I think this is something that if you look at what Canadians believe, 93% of Canadians
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believe that people ought to at least have the provincial plan.
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And so I think it's aligning government with what needs to be done.
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I wish that the provinces of Ontario and Atlantic would come themselves and recognize it's a cost-effective
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measure. But I think as responsible federal Conservatives, it's our job to make sure the
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Canada Health Act is appropriately universal, portable, accessible across the country.
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And so where the provinces are not delivering, I think we have a role there.
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I know we touched briefly on the carbon tax, and I want to speak about this with you in
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particular, because I think more than any of the other candidates in the race, you've
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made a climate plan not only a part of the platform that you've put out, but something
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that you've really tried to go out of the way to, I think, talk about it and bring attention
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to. And this is an area where you certainly look at the criticisms that the Liberals put
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towards Conservatives that many in the media do.
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It's that they are out of alignment with where they think we need to be on the environment
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What's your vision under a Maryland Gladue-led Conservative Party?
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Well, for sure, as we talked about, the carbon tax doesn't work, so we would eliminate that.
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But what we would do is address the top emissions in Canada.
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If you take a look at the list, they're really in three camps, major industrial emitters and
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So what I would do, based on my experience as a chemical engineer when I was in the refining
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business, there was an excellent mechanism put in place in the States where they gave
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an incentive if companies purchased and installed the technology to reduce their emissions, they
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And if they did not, there was a regulatory regime where they paid a penalty.
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And it really drove people to do the right thing and to reduce their emissions, which is
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In the transportation business, that same system could be used to incentivize diesel emissions
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There are many wonderful technologies within Canada, nuclear, portable nuclear units that
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In terms of buildings, obviously the greening of the building codes is happening.
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But in addition to that, Japan's got some amazing incineration technology where they actually
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power apartment buildings on the waste from the apartment building.
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And that is, you know, low emissions, no odor, no sound.
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And it's such a great answer to the plastics pollution issue where we collect all of it,
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And the reality is we're 1.6% of the carbon footprint of the world.
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We could eliminate the whole thing and it's not going to solve climate change.
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But we have an opportunity here to lead here at home and to leverage that technology in
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the world to the substantive contributors and create jobs for Canadians and prosperity here.
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When you were in engineering, working in engineering before politics, you were actually,
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I've learned, very active in getting companies to lower their emissions.
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And I guess the question that I would raise is this is taking place pre-carbon tax, pre-Justin
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Does this not prove that the industry itself can handle this on its own and is because
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of market demands rather than government putting incentives in or government forcing it
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Well, I think companies are driven by the stakeholders.
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And when they start to see the public sentiment in Canada valuing climate change, then they
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And there's many companies like Suncor and Shell and refining businesses that are introducing
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great climate initiatives and emissions reduction of their own volition.
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That's probably not enough to meet the Paris targets and to take advantage of the opportunity
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that's before us, where we have a lot of green technology.
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And if we look to our neighbours to the south, they just got the largest emissions reduction,
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one gigatonne of any country over the same time period, having withdrawn from the Paris
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targets, but basically implementing technology to reduce emissions and getting off coal.
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Do you think it is important that we continue to set that Paris target as our benchmark?
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Well, I think when Canada gives its word in the world, we need to follow that up with
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And so I do think we need to achieve the Paris targets.
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But I think there's an opportunity to go beyond that, because really the value is if
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we replace the 453 coal plants that are being built with our LNG and our oil and gas products,
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that would cut their carbon footprint by a factor of five.
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So that's a significant contributor to the overall climate change issue.
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And I think it would also generate prosperity here at home.
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Justin Trudeau has said that famously, we need to phase out the oil sands.
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He also said in our neck of the woods in southwestern Ontario that manufacturing jobs were a thing
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Do you think that these sectors are fundamentally incompatible with a low carbon country, if
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And I don't think we can choose between the economy and the environment.
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Like I said, we could destroy or eliminate our whole footprint, and it wouldn't matter.
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And I think we have to build these nation-building projects.
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I'm very disappointed in the TechMinds decision to withdraw.
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But I mean, that was driven by the government's inaction since last July and all of the rule
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of law issues that Justin Trudeau didn't address.
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And so we have to build pipelines to get our oil and gas to market so that we can capture
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We have to build these nation-building projects.
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That may mean that we have to do additional carbon sinks, carbon sequestration, reforestation,
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other initiatives that have been brought forward.
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We've got some great examples in my own writing where they have a pepper plant that is run by
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the CO2 that's produced by some of the local industry.
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So we've got some amazing ideas, and we can do more.
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What would Prime Minister Marilyn Glad you have done to deal with the blockades?
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Well, recognizing that I come from an area that has dealt with this in the past.
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The key is to act swiftly and to peacefully disband.
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And then it becomes a very dangerous situation.
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So I think Trudeau waited too long when he recognized the police were not going to step
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They should have taken immediate action with the RCMP and the military, if necessary, to
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peacefully disband the folks without anyone getting hurt.
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That said, I think we also have an opportunity to introduce legislation like Jason Kenney did
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They passed or they've introduced Bill 1, which allows the police to, without a warrant,
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remove people who are blockading public infrastructure and to charge each of them up to $25,000.
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That's the kind of disincentive that will keep crowds and activists from getting involved.
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I mean, there's a lot of concern that in this instance it wasn't really about the Wet'suwet'en
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There was a lot of other folks bringing their grievances and activists that come from foreign
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And I'm glad you mentioned that because one of the things that you've done, which I think
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is very necessary in Canada, is take an aim at the foreign influence in elections.
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And we've seen this, I think, most notably in the 2015 election cycle, groups that receive
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foreign funding that once they cash the check, it becomes Canadian funding and they're campaigning
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and really a resistance by the Liberal government who was the beneficiary of much of this
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So why is it that you think this needs to be dealt with?
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And more importantly, how could you deal with it?
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Well, I mean, the National Security and Intelligence Organization from Parliament is just releasing
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They've identified that there are multiple ways that we have foreign interference in Canada
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and that Canada is actually not reacting quickly enough to those.
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Some of it is, as you've said, interference in our elections, where Tides Foundation, Rockefeller
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Foundation are able to give millions of dollars.
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They could still give six months in advance unlimited funds to basically keep the anti-oil
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And we also see that in the blockades, which disrupted business in our country, has cost
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our economy billions and inconvenienced Canadians, that there were a lot of environmental activists
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Cyber security would be the other area of concern.
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Selling the company that handled the anti-hacking software for the government to a Chinese firm was
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We have to make sure that we step it up on cyber security for the government, that we
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enforce the rule of law, and that we close the loopholes.
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Linda from the senator has a Bill 239 in the last parliament that would have closed the loopholes
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And it was held back by the independent senators or the independent liberal senators, depending
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So that's something that we should reintroduce, I think, and close that loophole before the
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So you'd reintroduce that as a government bill?
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Because when you talk about a lot of these issues, I think there are many Canadians who
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it's enough to get them to vote, let alone to pay attention to how the sausage is made,
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But what are for people that aren't necessarily as involved or connected to this issue?
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I'm sure people have seen LEAD Now, for example, Unifor, the teachers' unions provincially.
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There's all kinds of third parties that are spending millions and millions of dollars hating
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on whichever party they don't want to see get elected.
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That is interference for people's right to evaluate for themselves which party they want.
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Each party should be able to advertise as much as they are able to fundraise, and that
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But when you've got huge millions of dollars being spent, and some of it coming from the
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states, six months in advance, to these kind of organizations to drive an anti-oil agenda,
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It's something that people may not be aware of, but the messaging is getting out.
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Even on the Tech Frontier project, we saw a huge full-page ad that was taken out by those
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When you set out to run for office in 2015, did you have prime ministerial ambitions?
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Did you expect that you'd be running in the way that you are right now?
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I was planning to retire after 32 years of engineering, but I was the president of the
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Conservative Board when the sitting member decided to retire, and it became my job to
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So, having had quite a bit of success in the first parliament, obviously, I ran again.
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Sarnia re-elected me with a huge majority, and so back I came expecting that Andrew Scheer
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And so, now that that's not the case, we really have to find the solution, and I've outlined
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that it's a dynamic leader that can win the hearts of Canadians.
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I think a woman as a head of the party is going to regenerate that positive tone that
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I think, being a youth leader, I have specific policy designed to grow our party with young.
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They're the increasingly large voting demographic, and we've got to have policy that will attract
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And so, having a strategy to win and having the policy to do it, that's what this leadership
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Now, conservatives have traditionally driven that idea of a meritocracy home, of not choosing
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people based on identity, but you've made a point here that there is a value of having
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You also don't want people to vote for you because you're a woman, so how do you square
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Well, I think as long as you've got competency, you know, the rest will come.
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You know, people may decide they do want to vote for a competent candidate that happens
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also to be a woman, because they see the advantage in terms of attracting women to the base.
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But you don't support that Trudeopian gender parity of cabinet and these sorts of things?
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No, you have to choose people based on competency.
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I mean, obviously, Trudeau put ministers in place that had no experience whatsoever in
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their roles, and junior ministers paid the same as the finance minister and the minister
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If the minister of defense doesn't do his job, people die.
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If the finance minister doesn't do his job, we have the mess that we have now.
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So, you know, when the status of women minister doesn't do something right, what happens?
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It's not the same risk skill, and that wouldn't be the way we would be rewarded in private
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You, in your platform, talk about a modern conservative party, and that word appears a
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number of times, or the juxtaposition of words.
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When you talk about building a modern party, is the implication that the party in which you've
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I ran under Stephen Harper, but I never served under him.
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I would say, when I use the word modern, it's my attempt to delineate between the same old,
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same old that we've been doing, and this new approach, where I'll be standing up for the
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rights and freedoms of every Canadian, because we've had a lot of negativity, a lot of pitting
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one group against another group, and at the end of the day, I'm going to stand up for
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people that are pro-life, people that are pro-choice, people that want to march in a pride
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parade, people that don't want to march in a pride parade.
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It's our individual freedoms, and as Canadians, if we're going to have our freedoms, we have
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to give other people theirs, and we've got to start treating one another respectfully and
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And so a modern Conservative Party is that recognition that Canadians think the government
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Because that's how a lot of people are trying to pigeonhole this election, as being about
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I think, you know, within our big blue tent, we can't do without either faction.
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And, you know, you can't have one way or the other.
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You wouldn't be able to survive either if all the Red Tories left the party.
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So there's so many different kinds of Conservatives.
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We have to stop pitting one group against one another and say, look, let's get united on
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the things that we care about, fiscal responsibility, social compassion.
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Where we differ, let's give people the freedom of conscience to vote how they want and the
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ability as duly elected MPs to bring their private members business as long as it aligns
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with the party policy, which the grassroots members set.
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So when you take that dichotomy of the modern versus the same old, same old, I have to ask,
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do you think it's a matter of core identity or do you think it's a matter of messaging
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People run their households in a fiscally responsible way.
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But Canadians are compassionate and we can't just be fiscal hawks.
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I think in the past we've talked about the economy, the economy, the economy and nothing
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And that's what a modern Conservative Party will do.
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I guess the question that I'm interested in is, do you think that the issues with the
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Conservatives right now are about marketing or are they about the product?
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I think the communication of the party has in the past not been good.
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You know, the way the platform was delivered, there's so many things I could say that were not
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ideal. I think we have to do better in terms of marketing, but you have to have something
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to market. You know, saying, you know, we don't care about people that, you know, don't
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have a prescription medication plan. I don't think that's where Canadians are. I think Canadians
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are more compassionate. We don't care about seniors living in poverty. I don't think that's
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a view. That's the view that's led to the branding of the Conservatives today as old,
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traditional, cold, all these things. I think, you know, that's not how you grow and that's
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not how you win. So I think the message and the marketing of the message both have to be
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What are the issues facing Canada right now that you think no one is talking about but
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Well, obviously, the destruction of the economy in the West. People have lost their businesses,
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their houses. They're killing one another or killing themselves over this situation. It's
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dire. And so that is something that we absolutely have to address. I think there are a number of
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drains on our economy. The out of control spending was not good when it was sunny days. Now we've
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got a pandemic coming that may shut down the tourism industry that has everybody concerned
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that 30 to 70 percent of Canadians could get COVID-19. Certainly, these are the serious issues
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of the day. The blockades will continue. We know any time we try to do a nation building
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project. We'll have that issue to address. So those are the things that we have to get
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right. If we're going to restore business confidence, that we are a rule of law country,
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that we are going to create a competitive business climate where people can come and invest
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in these projects that will give us the jobs that we so badly need.
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Let's talk a little bit about where you'd like to see your own campaign go within the leadership
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race. Because there is, as Western alienation grows, and you talked about it right there,
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I think a lot of resistance from Albertans, specifically Albertan Conservatives, Saskatchewan
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Conservatives, to, oh, just another person from Ontario or just another person from Quebec
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in particular. So how do you, as a candidate from Ontario, speak to those voices in the West
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Well, I think clearly my 32 years as a chemical engineer, especially in oil and gas, many of
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the companies I worked for, Suncor, Dow, Worley Parsons, were headquartered in Edmonton
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or Calgary. And so when I go out West, I talk about those experiences and people recognize,
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I know how to restore prosperity in those areas. I know how to create jobs there. And
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I think, you know, they can appreciate that. The other thing I would say is, I've worked
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all over the country and all over the world. And so I know how business works. I've worked
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in global business. I've worked in small business. And I think people appreciate that
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the balance of real world experience with parliamentary experience and success. That's
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what we need in a leader in order to be able to get things done in Parliament that are going
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to be the right things to let the free market create jobs.
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I don't even think this is going to be a question as much as a word, but immigration.
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Yes. Well, you know what? We absolutely need immigration. But I would say I would like to
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see us move to a different proportion. I'd like to see 70% of immigrants be economic immigrants,
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people that come to fill skill gaps in Canada. We're missing doctors, nurses, personal support
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workers, and we don't have the capacity to even train them here locally. So that's just an example
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of the gaps that exist. If we could bring people here, credential them, they could be taxpayers right
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off the get-go, and it would really help our economy. Secondly, we have to have about 20%
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family reunification. Today, people are waiting three and four years to be reunited with their
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spouses or their children or their parents and paying fees while 50,000 people walk illegally into
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the country that we didn't choose, that we're putting up on taxpayer dollars for four years while
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we find out 50% of them aren't eligible to be here. So that's not how we want to do things.
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The last 10% would be those people we have compassion on, people that are in war-torn and
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persecuted areas. And I prefer the privately sponsored model to the government-sponsored
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model. We saw with the Syrian refugees that people who are privately sponsored had better outcomes.
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They integrated better into the communities, they got jobs, they learned the language better,
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and it's not a burden on the taxpayer. And so, you know, there's not necessarily a need to limit the
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number of those if we have more generous people that want to privately sponsor.
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Honestly, when they get working, it drives our economy, we need that growth, and it's going to
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Do you think coming in illegally is a disqualifying factor for having that compassionate resettlement
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I think Canadians want to choose who is going to come to our country. And I think people that are
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the most angry that have talked to me are people that immigrated to the country and paid their own
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way, were sponsored by their own families, didn't get anything from the public dime. And they're angry to
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see people that we didn't invite here who are coming and are receiving, you know, huge amounts
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of money and benefits on the taxpayer dime. That's not fair. They've taken resources away from
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Immigration Canada from processing reunification for families for these folks that we didn't invite.
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And so I think we have to work with the U.S. to close that safe third country agreement and recognize
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they're not coming in everywhere, right? They're coming in Manitoba and Quebec because they have instant
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health care and instant legal aid there in both of those places that they don't have any other
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And one of the items that jumped out to me from your platform is reinstating the language requirement
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for citizens to speak English and French. And I don't think a lot of Canadians are aware that you
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don't need to speak one of the official languages to get citizenship.
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Many changes that the Liberals made, they said you don't need to speak English or French anymore
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to be a citizen. And that's an expense and a dangerous thing. If our emergency responders and
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first responders can only speak in English and French and there's all these other languages that
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people are speaking and they don't speak either English or French, it's dangerous and costly if we
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have to translate everything into everyone's language. So I think that's one of the changes that we should
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Now, when it comes to family reunification, grandma coming from Italy or some other country is unlikely
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to be able to learn English in her old age. Someone who comes in under compassionate grounds may not
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have had the opportunity to learn English in schooling if they've come from a war-torn region.
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So you're not putting that language restriction in for immigration itself, but just for citizenship?
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Well, for citizenship. And I would say there was an exemption in the old citizenship for people
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who are older because it was recognized that at 65, you weren't going to learn a new language. So
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I think that exemption was fine. It worked for years and it should be reinstated with the
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Let's talk about how you would view going into the next election whenever it is.
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And going up against Justin Trudeau, what do you think is his biggest weakness? And I realize that's
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a loaded question, but at the same time for all of the conservatives that just thought
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there's no way this guy could win again, he did, he's there again. So clearly something
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about what he's doing is resonating with Canadians. What's your priority in serving
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as opposition leader in parliament, but going up against him in an election as well?
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Well, I think, you know, people know who Justin Trudeau is. The branding exercise on the liberals
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said the three words they would use to describe them were liar, untrustworthy and corruption.
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So they were looking for an alternative. We got an increase in the popular vote. We did get more seats.
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People were really looking for that leader and that platform that would draw them to the party.
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And I think those are the two things that I will deliver. That said, if you look at Trudeau's
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ethical violations and you compare that to somebody who's a professional engineer, has always had to
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have a code of conduct and ethics and integrity or we lose our license. My record is clean. There is no
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skeleton to dig up in my past. And I think that along with a plan, the liberals never have a plan.
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Even yesterday, they announced a billion dollars for the pandemic. And what are they going to do
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with it? Well, we're not really sure. Well, that's not a plan. And so I have a plan and a plan to restore
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Canada to prosperity, to safety, and I would say happiness.
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What is your first bill or first motion as leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition?
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That's a great question. I think the first one would have to be a similar bill to what Jason
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Kenney has put in place to establish the rule of law, because we can't restore the prosperity in
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the West and start building these projects if we have anarchy.
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I find I'm not laughing at your idea. I'm laughing at the idea that we're in this country now where
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establishing rule of law has to exist. And it's not just a standard and a constant. I mean,
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Well, how sad is that? That even when you looked at the polling, you saw 40% of people were okay
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with folks that were illegally protesting. I was alarmed when I saw that. That's a real erosion
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of the principle of the rule of law, which is what keeps society civil. And so we definitely have to,
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you know, reinforce that. And we see from the foreign investment leaving that they also see that
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shift, that it's not sure that the government is actually going to keep things stable here.
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So when you look through your roadmap for the next few months, as we head from now to the
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leadership, is there a faction of the party that you're trying to go after? Or are you trying to
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say, listen, I'm the one that social conservatives should vote for? I'm the one that Alberta oil
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sector workers should vote for? I'm the one that, you know, GTA suburban families should vote for?
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Is that really the goal? For myself, my challenge is that I'm the least known. But I would say those
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that are well known are not necessarily the best loved. The more people get to know me, the more
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they love my message, the more they love me. And so my challenge is to get the message out there
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through social media, through traveling around the country, folks like yourself in the media that can
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help and to achieve the milestones. So by March 25th, to make sure that I'm on the ballot.
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Once I'm on the ballot, then the strategy is to go where I'm going to be strong. I worked in Quebec
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for 15 years, and my French is very good. And so depending on who's on the ballot, my French might
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be the best. And that would be an advantage in Quebec, having worked there and understanding the
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people of Quebec. I have roots in the East Coast as well. I know that Peter McKay is strong there.
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But when I went down to the Halifax Convention, and people heard me, many that were going to vote
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him first ballot, changed their minds. And so we've talked about the West, and I'll be popular
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in the West, popular in Ontario, popular, I would say, in BC. And I just came back from Iqaluit.
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Yeah, you've gone from coast to coast to coast and in between.
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All right. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me. Marilyn Gladjew,
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Sarnia Lampton, Member of Parliament, Engineer and Candidate for the Leadership of the Conservatives.
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All right. This is the beginning of our series on leadership candidates here on True North. But
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by no means the end. We'll have interviews with hopefully all of the candidates in the weeks to
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come. My thanks to all of you for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time. Thank you. God bless. Good
00:32:20.400
Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at