“They’re all just like Justin,” Poilievre told reporters in Ottawa during his first press conference since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he would be resigning once the Liberal party had elected a new leader.
“In the next election I will be running against Justin Trudeau, whether his name is Justin Trudeau or his name is Chrystia Freeland or carbon tax Carney or carbon tax Clark, they will all be Justin Trudeau,” he said on Thursday.
“They supported everything he’s done and they promise to keep doing it. If they say otherwise, we know they’re lying because they would have done so earlier.”
Poilievre then listed off potential candidates Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland and Christy Clark, all of who could potentially serve as the new leader of the Liberals, citing each of their long-standing alignment with Trudeau’s policies.
“I’m calling on Justin Trudeau to do what he has the legal power to do, he can do it without his caucus supporting him. I’m calling on him to walk out of Rideau Hall and announce that there will be an ‘axe the tax’ election now so that Canadians can take back their lives and country,” he said. “The choice will be simple, either the NDP-Liberals, who tax your food, punish your work, double your housing costs, unleash crime and chaos and weakness on the world stage or common sense Conservatives.”
Poilievre went on to say that Canada needs a “massive tax cut” to bolster a stronger economy that is producing and manufacturing products domestically.
The Conservative leader said such changes would make Canada’s economy more independent and less vulnerable to threats from abroad.
In regards to incoming US President Donald Trump’s pledge to impose a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports, Poilievre suggested a boots-on-the-ground approach to negotiating with the country’s largest trading partner and ally.
“We should go to the American workers in the Midwest and their union and business leaders and say, ‘how many jobs are you prepared to lose by hitting Canadian energy with tariffs?’ Energy that we sell to America at discounts that create six-figure jobs for American workers. How many of those people will go out work? How many of those hard hats will be laid down and boots be unfilled because Americans will lose jobs due to that self harm if those tariffs go ahead.”
Without tariffs, Poilievre noted, Canada could offer home builders better softwood lumber and tech companies reliable electricity sources to power their AI data centres.
“We have the most uranium for nuclear centres,” he said. “Meta, Google, Mircorsoft are all buying or refurbishing their own nuclear plants to power their data centres, we could do it for them here in Canada.”
Poilievre argued as our neighbouring ally, the US should not opt for purchasing oil from Venezuela but instead buy “good, clean, Canadian oil.”
“Not only should we condemn Maduro and the dictators in Venezuela for what they’re doing, we should shut them off by shutting down their energy and their oil sales and replacing it with Canadian oil sales,” he said. “The Americans, our friends, want Canadian oil, not Venezuelan, not Iranian and not other dirty dictator oil from around the world.”
Poilievre argued that these would be the kinds of arguments a “strong prime minister with brains and backbone to lead a country” should be presenting to Trump if Canada had a “serious government.”
He said that the time has come for Canadians to once again be proud of their country, unapologetic of its past and to honour their shared values.
“We need to live out the dream that started with John A. MacDonald. Yes, I said John A. MacDonald, who believed in an independent and sovereign Canada,” said Poilievre.
“We need to uphold our heroes, stop tearing down our symbols. We need to remind people who come here that when they’re given a Canadian flag and they land on Canadian soil, that it’s the greatest gift on earth and that they should be proud to be part of the Canadian family.”
