Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was the first of the major party leaders to launch his election campaign on March 23, holding a media event in Gatineau, Que., in the late morning.
Like other party leaders, his campaign speech was heavily focused on U.S. President Donald Trump and his tariffs on Canada and remarks about wanting Canada to be a part of the United States, with Poilievre saying he is the right person to deal with the Trump presidency.
His speech also zeroed in on the Liberal Party, saying the governing party has increased poverty, driven up housing prices, pushed away investments by increasing taxes, seen crime and drug use ramp up, and allowed uncontrolled immigration. He said Liberal Leader Mark Carney would be a continuation of the previous Trudeau government.
Poilievre shared his life story of being adopted by teachers and said the Conservatives will restore “Canada’s promise,” which he said has been broken under the Liberal government.
Poilievre said he would cut taxes, remove the carbon tax entirely, including from the industry, remove federal laws standing in the way of resource development, and allow for the building of a national pipeline to open up more markets for Canada’s energy sector.
He also said he would boost security in the Arctic, build a military base there, and take care of veterans.
While taking questions from reporters, Poilievre was notably pleasant, thanking them for their questions regardless of the outlet they were with, despite in the past taking issue with certain outlets such as the CBC, saying the national broadcaster is heavily biased, or rejecting the premise of questions that made general statements such as charging that his policies are similar to Trump’s.
The following is the text of Poilievre’s March 23 campaign speech.
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We’re happy to be here to launch our campaign to restore Canada’s promise, and to do it on this very beautiful day.
Today, the Liberals are asking for a fourth term in power after swapping Justin Trudeau for his economic adviser and hand-picked successor, Mark Carney.
But after the lost Liberal decade, the question is whether Canadians can afford a fourth Liberal term, after these out-of-touch Liberals inflated housing costs, drove up the cost of food, pushed 2 million people to food banks, unleashed crime on our streets, ruined our immigration system, blocked our resources, sent a half a trillion dollars to the United States, and made our economy more reliant on the Americans than ever before.
Or is it time to put Canada first for a change with a new Conservative government that will axe taxes, honour hard work, build homes, cut taxes, lock up criminals, secure our borders, unleash resources to bring home our jobs, and stand up to Donald Trump from a position of strength.
Now on that subject, I know a lot of people are worried, angry, and anxious, and with good reason as a result of the president’s unacceptable threats against our country.
You worry about your job and the sovereignty of our nation, and you’re angry at the feeling of betrayal that these unacceptable words and tariffs have made us all experience. I share your anger and I share the worry for our future, but I also draw great resolve in knowing that we can transform the anxiety and anger into action.
First of all, let me be clear, we will never be an American state. We will always be a sovereign and self-reliant country.
The action we must take is to become that nation that’s the strong, self-reliant, and sovereign, capable of standing on its own two feet and standing up to the Americans. We will stare down this unprovoked threat with steely resolve, because, be assured, Canadians are tough, we are hardy, and we stand up for ourselves.
I will protect Canada, and I will always put our country first. But before I tell you how, let me tell you why this country has given me everything I have.
I know my story wouldn’t have been possible in any other country in the world. I was born to a 16-year-old single mother who put me up for adoption to two schoolteachers, but they taught me that in Canada, despite humble beginnings, I can achieve anything I wanted.
I got into politics to protect and preserve that promise. And that promise means that if you work hard, you get a house, a nice house on a safe street, protected by brave troops under a proud flag.
Now, that promise is broken after a decade of Liberal government.
Liberal taxes drove up food prices 37 percent faster than in the United States. Housing costs have more than doubled. Single moms go to bed hungry, worried how they will feed their children in the morning. Liberals have driven up our housing costs by inflating demand with out-of-control money printing and immigration, while at the same time blocking supply with massive bureaucracies that don’t let builders build. So for the first time in the history of Canada, our young people cannot afford homes.
Open borders, Liberal crime and drug laws have unleashed violence, disorder, and deadly overdoses.
Ten years of Liberals hiking taxes and blocking resource projects has pushed a half-trillion dollars to the United States, given us the worst growth in the entire G7, and all of this was before the tariffs of Donald Trump.
What’s more, our nation is more divided than ever before because the Liberal, radical post-national borderless and globalist ideology has weakened our nation.
Now desperate for a fourth term, Liberals have replaced Justin Trudeau with his economic advisor and hand-picked successor, Mark Carney. But a Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal. It’s the same old Liberal MPs, the same Liberal ministers, the same Liberal advisers, the same Liberal elites, the same broken Liberal promises of the last 10 years.
We cannot afford another lost Liberal decade. We need to put Canada first for a change with a new Conservative government to axe taxes, reward work, unleash entrepreneurs, harvest our resources, make things here, build homes for our youth, secure our borders, rebuild our military, honour our history, and raise our flag.
It starts with a big bring-it-home tax cut on work, investment, energy, and homebuilding. We'll lower taxes to bring home businesses and to make sure Canadians bring home more of their paycheques.
And that starts with axing the carbon tax, the entire tax attacks that the Liberals, with Carney’s enthusiastic support, brought in for seven years and increased over and over, a tax that is still in law despite the government hiding it from gas stations for the 30 days leading up to the election, a tax they will bring back bigger than ever before if re-elected.
And on this point, Mr. Carney and Mr. Trump are in total agreement. They both want to tax Canadian industry. Mr. Carney’s carbon tax and Donald Trump’s tariffs will destroy Canadian industry, pushing jobs south. But I won’t let that happen.
A new Conservative government will repeal the carbon tax law, and we will axe the tax for everyone, for everything, for good, forever, and for real. We will also take the sales tax off new homes and incentivize municipalities to speed up permits, free up land and cut development charges so that we can build homes and restore the dream of home ownership.
We will bring home our resource jobs for a change. That means repealing Liberal no-new-pipelines law C-69, lifting the Liberal cap on energy that Carney still supports, quickly approving LNG plants, mines, and other major projects; new Canada-first building zones will pre-approve sites for construction so that businesses can get busy working and hiring and building and developing and spend no more time filling out paperwork.
With a national pipeline like the one the Liberals blocked not long ago, we can go around the American market, send our oil to Europe, break European dependence on Putin, and break our dependence on the United States of America. A double win—two birds, one stone.
We'll knock down interprovincial trade barriers to have one big, open, free market across our country, moving goods, services, people nationwide that will bring home our jobs and bring us together.
We will also bring home safety to our communities by stopping the crime for a change. That means repealing catch-and-release Liberal laws and imposing mandatory jail time on repeat offenders, banning hard drugs, and offering recovery to bring our loved ones home drug-free.
We'll cap immigration and stop the radical Century Initiative, which seeks to almost triple our population to 100 million people, a crazy idea still endorsed by Liberals and their top advisers that will end when I am prime minister. We will also keep frauds, fraudsters, and criminals out of our country, and we will crack down on bogus claims. On immigration, like everything else, we will put Canada first for a change.
Our troops will have support. Our military will be rebuilt. We will have new icebreakers, new fighter jets, new surveillance aircraft, a brand new base, the first base in the Arctic since the Cold War in Iqaluit.
And we will back our veterans to ensure they have good lives after they fought for our country. They remind us that Canada is tough, rugged, strong, hardy. We don’t go looking for a fight, but we’re ready if one comes looking for us.
None of this will be easy, but making and defending Canada wasn’t easy either, and with change, there’s hope.
So, I say to the struggling single mother who worries how she will feed her kids, hope is on the way; to the 35-year-old still living in mom’s basement but dreaming of owning his own place and starting a family, change is on the way; to the seniors choosing between eating and heating and to all those who wonder what happened to the country that they knew and love, change and hope are both on the way.
A new Conservative government will restore Canada’s promise, the promise that anyone from anywhere can do anything. That hard work gets you a great life in a beautiful home on a safe street under a proud flag.
To preserve that flag and uphold its promise, we must work together, fight together, and win together for our people, for our land, for our home, for Canada first for a change.
Thank you.
