Prime Minister Mark Carney appointed Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen as the Liberal government’s party whip.
Gerretsen, who has represented Kingston and the Islands since 2015, will now serve as the Liberals’ top enforcer of party discipline. Over the past several years, Gerretsen has developed a reputation as a staunch partisan and a political provocateur.
The four-term MP served as the Liberals’ deputy house leader since September 2023 and sat on various parliamentary committees. He also served as the mayor of Kingston from 2010 to 2014.
While in the House of Commons, Gerretsen has employed vitriolic rhetoric against Conservative MPs and their supporters.
On the campaign trail during last month’s election, Gerretsen traded barbs with one of his pro-gun constituents, calling him “pathetic.”
In 2023, Gerretsen baselessly accused Conservative MP Roman Baber of being “alt-right,” despite Baber advocating for “democratic conservatism” during the 2022 Conservative leadership race and being a member of the Jewish community.
Baber rebuffed Gerretsen’s attack, highlighting his family’s history of suffering in the Holocaust and claiming that anti-semitism thrives in Justin Trudeau’s “woke” Liberal Party.
In June 2024, Gerretsen had a coffee mug printed with an image of former Liberal MP Jennifer O’Connell with the caption “Boo Hoo, get over it.”
The mug is in reference to O’Connell’s heckling of Conservative MP Frank Caputo with the aforementioned phrase after he asked whether the government would release the names of elected officials engaging in foreign interference.