Thursday January 9, 2025 | VICTORIA, BC [Posted at 5:45 pm | Updated 6 pm]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
“They’re all Justin Trudeau. They’re all just like Justin,” said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre today.
Today Poilievre held his first media availability since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on January 6 his intention to resign as Prime Minister and Liberal Party of Canada Leader once the party chooses a new leader.
Poilievre today took specific hits against likely leadership hopefuls Mark Carney (a former Bank of Canada governor and a recent economic advisor to the Liberal caucus) and Christy Clark (a former BC Liberal Premier). This is a broadening of the campaign brush that was previously targeted almost entirely against Trudeau for more than a year.
For the record, Christy Clark purchased a Conservative Party membership in 2022 so she could vote in the Conservative leadership party election process to support Jean Charest, though Poilievre ended up winning handily on the first ballot.
The Conservative leader says that the Liberal nomination process will allow foreign interference (given there is no fee and no citizenship requirement in the Liberal Party membership sign-up process).
It’s interesting that today the visual backdrop of Poilievre’s media availability was predominantly red … the colour of the Liberal party, while he wore a dark blue (Conservative colour) suit for contrast.
Long speech in French then English:
Poilievre delivered his entire speech fully in French, followed by the same content in English. That departs from the frequently-used format of intermingling English and French.
He said that there have been “sixty days of Liberal chaos” and how that disarray has invited “weakness from incoming president Trump”. Things that were out of control that were housing costs and food costs, said Poilievre.
Canada has seen “the worst inflation in 40 years after out of control Liberal deficits and money printing increased our money supply by $700 billion or 40%,” which Poilievre said is “ten times faster than that growth in the output of our economy”.
Spending is out of control, he says, with a deficit that has reached $62 billion. Poilievre says COVID cannot be blamed for how much the deficit has grown, though that may fall short of realizing the long-term impacts of disruptions to business, households, relationships and families for about two years (2020-2022).
Poilievre noted the poly-crisis of housing, social services and jobs together with border issues, unrelenting drug-related deaths and crime.
Alignment among Liberal MPs:
While Poilievre has been blaming Trudeau all along through more than a year of ‘axe the tax’ campaigning, he makes a valid point today that the other 150+ Liberal MPs are of a similar mindset about housing and social policy if not also financial policy.
The NDP influence on social policy is undeniable but the foundational Liberal mindset about an overall corporate economy is steadfast.
Trudeau going forward:
Trudeau is now focussing on the Canada-USA file during his remaining weeks in office. The House of Commons will get back to business starting March 24 but a non-confidence vote is likely to see the government fall shortly after that.
A spring 2025 election is therefore likely on the horizon.
“I need the mandate to put our country first,” said Poilievre as to his intention to win for the Conservatives in the upcoming election.
As of this date, the House of Commons is comprised of 153 Liberal MPs, 120 Conservative, 33 Bloc, 25 NDP, 2 Green, 4 independent and 1 vacant.
The bulk of MPs (121 across all parties) are from Ontario, with 78 from Quebec, 43 from BC, 34 from Alberta, and 14 from each of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Combined, the Atlantic provinces have 21 MPs (10 from New Brunswick, 7 from Newfoundland and Labrador, 4 from PEI). Each of the three territories has one MP (Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon).
The bulk of Liberal Ontario and Atlantic MPs have been vocal in recent weeks about their own leader being ‘the problem’, and Trudeau finally caved to that internal pressure.
===== RELATED:
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