Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a jab at Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre during question period on Wednesday for losing his finance critic post last month.
During an exchange between the two, Trudeau implied that he sympathized with Poilievre for being among the many Canadians who lost their jobs during the pandemic.
“This prime minister has cost the most to achieve the worst results and what he expects us now to do is to just continue down this failed path. If the prime minister wants the confidence of Canadians will he tell them: what will he change to reverse the failures that he has delivered thus far?” asked Poilievre.
“I can understand the frustration of the member opposite, being amongst the many Canadians who’ve lost their jobs during this pandemic. The fact is that we have been there to support Canadians every step of the way, by investing in families, by investing in workers, by knowing that the best way through this pandemic is to be there to support them and that is exactly what we have done and what we will continue to do,” said Trudeau.
Poilievre was moved out of his finance critic role in early February following a shuffling of the Conservative shadow cabinet.
MP Ed Fast took over Poilievre’s former post, while Poilievre was moved to the party’s jobs and industry critic position. The move was the first party shuffle since Erin O’Toole took over as leader of the party in 2020.
Earlier this week, the MacDonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) released its COVID Misery Index which ranks the relative despair caused during the pandemic. In Its report, MLI ranked Canada as the fifth most-miserable country out of the fifteen countries studied.
According to Statistics Canada data, Canada’s jobless rate went up to 9.4% in January as the economy shed 213,000 jobs partly due to nation-wide restrictive lockdowns.
A December 2020 poll by Ipsos also revealed that around 9% of Canadians, or 3 million people reported losing their jobs in 2020.
