QUEBEC CITY—With the stage set similarly to his packed town halls across the country where the speaker is in the middle of the crowd, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre painted a picture of everything that he said is wrong with Canada under the current government and how he can fix it.
“The promise of Canada was that a kid could start anywhere, and get anywhere. Hard work used to get you a powerful paycheque, and every generation was just a little better off than their parents,” Mr. Poilievre told around 3,000 Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) supporters gathered for their party’s national convention at the Centre des congrès de Québec in Quebec City on Sept. 8.
“That was the promise of Canada. And that is the most important promise Justin Trudeau broke.”
The Tory leader was introduced onstage by his wife, Anaida Poilievre, who grew up in Montreal.
Starting her speech in French and drawing on her connections with Quebec, Ms. Poilievre, who was born in Venezuela, recounted her family’s story of immigrating to the province.
“Quebec welcomed my family after we immigrated to Canada, and I’m thankful for the warm welcome,” she said.
Taking the stage amid cheers from the crowd, Mr. Poilievre similarly started his speech in French, and transitioned seamlessly between condemning the Liberals and the NDP when speaking in English, and substituting NDP with the Bloc Québécois when speaking in French.
The Tory leader said he knows of a 74-year-old truck driver in Bowmanville, Ont., whose rent is going up by $700 a month, which he can’t afford, so his choice is to either become homeless or ask his daughter if he can live at her place, and of young people who have to work two or three jobs to be able to survive.
But his long speech also included details of what he would do to turn things around.
“We know what the problem is, and we know it can be fixed,” he said.
The first thing he would do as prime minister, he said, is to remove the carbon tax, which he said is driving up the cost of food due to increased transportation costs.
On the issue of curbing crime, Mr. Poilievre emphasized the need to ensure violent repeat offenders don’t get freed on bail. He also said a government led by him would balance the budget.
The Conservative leader said he would adopt a “dollar-for-dollar” law, so that the government stays within its means, and avoid “printing money” which causes inflation.
“Every time a politician has a bright idea to spend money, he will be forced to root out waste in his own department to pay for it rather than just passing the bill on to you and higher inflation,” he said.
When it comes to housing, Mr. Poilievre said a Conservative government would implement a new formula to tie funding provided to cities for infrastructure projects to the number of houses they allow to be built.
“We will require big cities to permit 15 percent more home-building per year or lose infrastructure money,” he said.
In 2022, a House of Commons committee issued a report questioning the CIB’s efficiency, quoting witnesses who said progress on projects was “pretty dismal” or that not much had been done. The Liberal government rejected the report, with cabinet minister Dominic Leblanc saying that “attracting private capital is critical to reduce the cost of infrastructure for all levels of government.”
Mr. Poilievre said he would also remove Canada from communist China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, where Canada has committed to invest $250 million.
“We will stop giving money to foreign dictators and global bureaucracies like the Beijing-controlled Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank,” he said.
Mr. Poilievre also said if he forms the next government, he would bring in a foreign agent registration act, as well as remove Beijing’s unofficial police stations.
The Liberal government has said it is currently consulting on bringing in a foreign agent registration act amid recent revelations of China’s widespread attempts to influence Canada’s elections, but so far has not supported private members’ bills to implement the measure into law.
The RCMP has said it has taken action against China’s unofficial police stations in Canada, but so far no arrests have been made related to the issue, unlike in the United States. As well, some of the centres have been reported to be continuing operations.
Mr. Poilievre also touched briefly on cultural aspects, saying English Canada should learn from Quebec and cherish their heritage.
“This business of deleting our past must end, and this is a matter on which English Canada must start to learn from Quebec. Quebecers—I’m saying this in English deliberately—do not apologize for their culture, their language, and their history. They celebrate it. And all Canadians should do the same,” he said as the crowd gave him a standing ovation.
Winning Support in Quebec
The CPC has been enjoying a 10 percent lead over the Liberals in recent polls. And a poll released this week by Angus Reid says Mr. Poilievre is the preferred choice as prime minister over Mr. Trudeau by a 2-to-1 margin.The same poll found that the Liberals are viewed as the more favourable choice over the Conservatives in only one province—Quebec—with the Liberals taking the second and the Conservatives the third spots behind the Bloc Québécois.
And that’s what the Conservatives hope to change in the next election so they can win more seats in Quebec, and holding the convention in Quebec City is part of that strategy.
“[The convention] is in Quebec City. Usually [in previous conventions] it’s not as bilingual as it is today, the Quebecois presence is not as strong as it is today,” Éric Duhaime, leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, told The Epoch Times.
“The other thing is that we have a leader that is very dynamic and is very, really appreciated from the base of the party. We can feel it. The party has evolved over the last 20 or 30 years. Our policies are clearer now, with a leader that is more bilingual now than the ones that were there before.”
Another major asset for Mr. Poilievre when it comes to Quebec is his wife, Anaida Poilievre, who is from Quebec and “speaks perfect French,” Mr. Duhaime said.
Mr. Duhaime’s fledging provincial party, which has no formal ties to the federal Conservatives, got a relatively strong showing in popular votes in the 2022 Quebec election compared to previous years, with 12.9 percent of the votes going to his party. But the party still failed to win any seats.
Mr. Duhaime says it’s a matter of Quebecers getting to know the Conservatives better, not only the provincial party, but also the federal one now that there is a new leader with a new set of policies.
“Two years ago, the [provincial] party had 1 percent of the votes, we had 500 members. Now, we have 63,000 members, we got 13 percent of the votes, and we’re still on an upswing,” he said.
“The reality is that it takes time.”
