Justin Trudeau, according to federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, is an “an extremist,” and someone who has “dressed up in racist costumes so many times that he can't remember them all.”
Poilievre spent much of his time during an Aug. 2 interview with Sudbury.com talking about his political opponent, Canada’s Liberal prime minister.
After speaking for close to 10 minutes in the hot sun as 50 supporters gathered at Manitoulin Transport in Lively, Poilievre repeated several slogans that are now standard in his campaign and merchandise sold on his website.
For rising costs: “work doesn’t pay: you make it, Trudeau takes it.” Poilievre’s promotion of trades schools over universities is “boots not suits” and he said of hunting rifle bans: “I want to protect Canadians from criminals; Trudeau wants to protect turkeys from hunters.”
He also offered “jail, not bail,” in reference to his tough-on-crime initiatives.
After the event, Sudbury.com was given five minutes to speak with Poilievre, as were other local media outlets.
We began by asking about the numerous publications that have spoken of Poilievre’s interactions with groups seen as supporting extremist right-wing views. Looking to find out what those critics were getting wrong, we were able to say “Those who are not supporting you accuse you of flirting with extreme right wing…,” before Poilievre interrupted to ask “what do you mean?”
When Sudbury.com spoke of his interactions with groups that include Diagolon, which was recently in Sudbury, he asked “What is that? I don’t know what that is.”
We explained it is a group labelled by the RCMP, OPP and Canadian government as extremist. Poilievre said this was “an example of gaslighting by NDP liberal extremists who are trying to convince the people that they're wrong.”
“Justin Trudeau, Mr. Blackface, who's dressed up in racist costumes so many times that he can't remember them all, would like to tell the single mom that she's racist because she can't and doesn't want to pay his carbon tax. They want to call the trucker a racist because he can't afford a home and that he's not supporting them,” he said.
Sudbury.com told him that wasn’t quite answering the question. He responded, “I know what you’re speaking of, well, this is what I'm speaking of.”
But he said he wanted to address extremism.
“I'm addressing the extremism we have in Canada, and that extremism is a prime minister who says he admires the basic Chinese communist dictatorship, who says he admires Fidel Castro, who's passing censorship laws that Margaret Atwood, have you heard of her? She says that it's creeping totalitarianism. That's Margaret Atwood. So what, she's an extremist?”
He then asked, “out of curiosity,” if our reporter was a fan of the author. We declined to answer as it was not relevant and we had limited time.
He said “obviously, the fact that we do have a big problem with extremism in this country, and it's the Prime Minister. He is an extremist.”
Poileivre said the prime minister “wants to decriminalize crack and cocaine, he wants to pay for it to give out tax-funded opioids that are killing our kids. He wants to ban automobiles that people need to get where they’re going.” He did not provide specifics or reference policies to which he was referring.
Continuing the original question, Sudbury.com asked about his critics, who say he attacks segments of the 2SLGBTQ population, and he again interrupted, asking for specific dates, times and places he made comments. Sudbury.com said it was well documented in media reports, and Poilievre replied "Where?"
Moving on, Sudbury.com asked about polls on both sides of the border which indicate many are looking for more of an anti-politician, one that is not entrenched in government. We asked Poilievre, as a career politician who had been playing the game, why should people believe he is different?
He asked “Sorry, what game have I played?”
Sudbury.com responded: “the game of politics, as it were.”
He brought up the value of experience when it comes to challenges.
“You're having a heart attack and you need a heart surgery, you hire somebody who's been a heart surgeon and has successfully operated on patients; you wouldn't say: ‘well, geez, this heart surgeon has never been an accountant. He's never been a truck driver or a mechanic’.”
Poileivre said “if you want somebody who can deliver affordable homes, so you hire the guy who was Housing Minister when rent was $950 a year, and when housing a new house could be bought on average for 450 grand a year.”
Though Singh and Trudeau also refer to Poilievre as a housing minister, technically speaking, Poilievre never held that specific title.
For a nine-month period in 2015, during the final year of Stephen Harper’s government, he was the minister of employment and social development, wherein he assumed responsibility for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
Reports state that in the 2015-16 fiscal year, 3,742 non-profit units and 506 co-operative units across Canada were completed with the help of federal funding.
“If you wanted someone who could bring low inflation, you'd hire someone who in the past was part of a government that delivered extremely low inflation,” Poilievre continued. “So if you want somebody to do somebody, you hire someone who's done it and I have.”
Sudbury.com asked if that meant experience was more important than new ideas and a fresh new face in choosing the next prime minister.
“I don't know if you can even look at it either way, but compared to the current government, I am a fresh new face because they've been around for nine years doubling housing cost, jacking up taxes, punishing work and doubling the housing costs,” he said.
“Those things are the old way. The new way is to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime. That's what I'm going to do. You can call it old, you can call it new. I call it common sense,” he said.
Poilievre said today it is “impossible for a young person to own a home,” and that the situation was the result of Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh, whom Poilievre referred to as “Sellout Singh” because of the the coalition he formed with the Liberal Party as leader of the NDP.
Poilievre said the inability to afford a home was “never the case” before they took office.
“These are the direct results of government inflationary policies that robbed the working class in order to favour a very small minority of privileged and wealthy elites close to the government; and I'm going to reverse all of those policies,” he said.
“I will require municipalities to speed up and lower the cost of building permits to build the homes that we can afford, sell off 6,000 federal buildings and thousands of acres of federal land to build,” said Poilievre.
“We'll have a ‘bring it home’ tax cut that rewards work, saving and investment so that we can bring home powerful paychecks and production to this country. And of course, we're going to axe the carbon tax so that we can bring home affordable food.”
After the interview, Poilievre asked Sudbury.com about the recording we had made. “I hope you’ll play that in full without any edits,” he said.
He was told it was for accurate note-taking purposes.
Sudbury.com referred to the two cameras and aides watching, telling the Conservative leader that his team had recorded it in full.
“Yes, we’ll make sure that it’s covered the right way,” Poilievre said.
Jenny Lamothe is a reporter with Sudbury.com