Poilievre Says He Will Stand Up to ‘Woke’ Corporations

Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre delivers a speech at the Canada Strong & Free Network conference in Ottawa on March 23, 2023. Noé Chartier/The Epoch Times

OTTAWA—Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre levelled criticism at the “woke” movement and the corporations that have adopted the ideology to further their interests, at a conference on March 23.

“This is Woke Inc. It’s about large corporations in regulated oligopolies winning political favour by throwing around politically correct statements and advancing an agenda that makes no sense to anyone but them,” Poilievre said.

The Tory leader was delivering a keynote address at the Canada Strong & Free Network conference in Ottawa, an event presided over this year by Jamil Jivani, a former radio host on a Bell Media platform.

Poilievre’s comments on “Woke Inc.” were in relation to Jivani’s situation. He was fired by Bell last year for his “open disdain” of the company’s diversity initiatives and his work surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the National Post.

Jivani says he was fired for not toeing the company’s woke ideological line and is suing the media giant.

“This woke movement is an attack on the freedom of speech of ordinary people and the common sense of Canadians,” Poilievre said, while noting the situation of psychologist and public intellectual Jordan Peterson, who’s under threat of sanction by his professional college.

He remarked that Peterson’s reposting of one of his tweets is one of the reasons cited by the College of Psychologists of Ontario for wanting to discipline its member.

Poilievre said Canadians can count on him to stand up to “woke corporations” and to defend the right to free expression.

The woke ideology is a mixture of radical postmodern theories seeking to upend established laws and norms, which are perceived as maintaining systems of oppression such as “white supremacy” or the traditional family.

The ideology, which first conquered university campuses and can now be found in every sphere of society, whether in high schools or the military, includes diversity, equity, and inclusion programming.

The adoption of the ideology by large corporations has been the subject of a book specifically called “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” written by financier and now U.S. presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

Harper’s Advice

The previous day at the conference, former prime minister Stephen Harper gave the keynote address and said he expects Poilievre will succeed Justin Trudeau as prime minister.

Harper advised Poilievre to “indicate a direction you’re going to go, but it’s not to talk about how you would run the country, it’s to hold the government accountable for how it is running the country” and to point where there is “mismanagement, incompetence and corruption.”

He said the “liberal media” are trying to make Poilievre the issue and hold him accountable.

“The government continues on what I think is for the most part a pretty poor course, and they’re off the hook. The time to tell people about your alternatives in detail is in an election campaign.”

Poilievre’s main focus as Conservative leader has been to criticize the government on the cost-of-living crisis, but he has pressed on other issues as they’ve come along, such as the McKinsey contracts and foreign interference by the Chinese Communist Party.

He also talked about the spread of the “woke left” during his video address at the Canada Strong & Free Network conference in Red Deer last fall, calling on conservatives to get involved at levels to push back against the ideology.

Based in Calgary, the Canada Strong & and Free Network (formerly the Manning Centre) is a not-for-profit political advocacy group that was established in 2005 by Reform Party founder Preston Manning to promote conservative principles.

Program

Poilievre’s address in Ottawa levelled criticism at a number of current government and societal trends, but he also outlined what he would do if at the helm of the country.

To balance the budget, he said that every new dollar of spending would need to be accompanied by a dollar of savings.

Poilievre reiterated a promise made in mid-March to sue the pharmaceutical companies for $45 billion in damages for the opioid crisis.

He also said he would repeal previous bills that have hampered the exploitation and exportation of natural resources, as well as the yet-to-be-adopted Bill C-11 revamping the Broadcasting Act.

“A Poilievre government will not only repeal the censorship law C-11, but we will require every university that gets federal funds to commit itself to honouring the freedom and expression that we are guaranteed in our Charter of Rights,” he said.

Bill C-11 will give the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission regulatory power over facets of the internet. It’s been returned to the Commons after Senate amendments, with the government rejecting an amendment related to excluding user-generated content earlier this month.

The government says the bill is necessary to promote Canadian content and level the playing field with American media producers.

Peter Wilson contributed to this report.