Saturday February 15, 2025 | OTTAWA, ON [reporting from VICTORIA, BC]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
On this widely-celebrated Flag Day, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilevre held a party-faithful “Canada First” rally in Ottawa (with livestream). About 1,000 attended in the room, with nearly 1,000 people in overflow rooms.
The Conservative Party’s colour is blue. Today was all about red and white at the Conservative rally — the colours of the Canadian flag but also the Liberal Party of Canada. Not a speck of blue in sight.
Perhaps this was a visual call to disgruntled people who usually vote Liberal or who swing left/right between Liberal and Conservative, who might not want to vote Liberal in the next federal election.
There was also a strong family theme. Poilievre was introduced by his wife and one of their young children was brought on stage.
Long speech:
Poilievre’s speech lasted just over an hour, touching on just about every topic that the news cycle will want to hear about.
That list included cross-Canada trade barriers needing to be dropped (promising a meeting with Canada’s premiers on that topic within 30 days of becoming prime minister), the current Liberal leadership race and how the policies of Mark Carney (who Poilievre seems to think will be the Liberal prime minister after March 9) are much different from Trudeau’s, as well as crime, fentanyl and border security.
He spent some time talking about the experience of new immigrants to Canada.
He referred to the housing crisis indirectly, by saying that Canadians should all have a nice place to live within a safe country.
There was no mention of how Canada is ‘broken’, just a long list of things he would change.
Dropping the carbon tax:
But the Conservative leader’s biggest pronouncement was that he is sticking to his guns on ‘Axe the Tax’. He says he will lead the Conservatives in the next election on that theme of dropping the carbon tax on the agriculture sector and consumers (saying that Carney would only ‘change’ the tax), not so much on whether he can stand up to Trump.
Afterall, Polilievre is aligned with where nearly every Canadian is at now… standing strong as Canadians and dismissing the concept of being merged into the United States as US President Donald Trump muses about now almost daily.
Never succumb to the US:
The United States should “never confuse our kindness with weakness”, he said.
“We love our country and our flag. We are a strong people with a proud history as a warrior nation whose soldiers have been fierce enough to crush the fascists, the communists and Al Qaeda, yet humble enough to never once brag about their heroism. We are mild-mannered and made of steel,” said Poilievre, in what will probably be one of his most quotable statements to date in this year’s campaign.
“We will never be the 51st state,” said Poilievre definitively, to much applause. “We will bear any burden and pay any price to protect the sovereignty and independence of our country.”
Any Canadian leader of any party should be able to stand up to Trump. Poilievre is taking back the room, essentially defining an election landscape that should be more about policies than style.
Poilievre promised a strong approach to security in Canada’s north at the Arctic border. He would have Canadians be part of a large contingent of Arctic rangers and military personnel and cadets. He would establish a strong Arctic base “CFB Iqaluit”.
He touched on a range of other topics with some detail, mostly with an approach to shoring up Canadian pride. Passports would be restored with previous image like Terry Fox, Vimy Ridge, the Famous Five, and military heroes. Statues of leaders like John A MacDonald would be reinstated.
Promoting inclusiveness:
As part of removing “the two solitudes”, Poilievre promoted more French Immersion language training. That even while many of the comments in the X feed sidebar often rejected the French language components of all the speeches today (both Poilievre’s and the people who addressed the audience ahead of him; live interpretation might have resolved that.
As a way to honour the sanctity of becoming a Canadian citizen, Poilievre says he would restore in-person citizenship ceremonies for new permanent residents.
He said today that the federal government should “stop dividing by race, religion and vaccination status”.
“We are all Canadians, and Canadians first.”
===== RELATED:
NEWS SECTIONS: CONSERVATIVE PARTY | LIBERAL PARTY | CANADA-USA | CANADIAN ELECTION 2025