Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took shots at Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre while addressing delegates on the first day of the Liberal Party’s 2023 national convention in Ottawa, saying Poilievre is wrong to criticize the government for being “too woke” and needs to “wake up” himself.
“Too woke?” Trudeau said. “Hey Pierre Poilievre, it’s time for you to wake up.”
“Wake up to the fact that a gender-balanced cabinet is a good thing and that women fully participating in the workforce is a good thing, not something to snub.”
The prime minister also said the Conservatives should “wake up to the fact that under our government fewer persons with disabilities are facing poverty,” adding that “$10-a-day childcare is not woke policy, it’s economic policy.”
“Now we all know that some of our opponents will try to clip some of my words out of context tomorrow to make it sound as if we think that everything is just fine, but this is not what I’m saying,” he said. “Too many Canadians are struggling.”
Trudeau also criticized Poilievre’s calls to defund the CBC and said the questions asked by Conservative MPs during debate in the House of Commons for the most part do not represent the main concerns of Canadians.
Poilievre has criticized the Liberal government for making policy decisions based on “woke” principles—most recently in relation to the government’s now-passed Bill C-11.
“Why? It is because then one can justify having a government to control all those groups. No more woke; we need freedom,” he said.
Near the end of his keynote address on May 4, Trudeau told his listeners that he intends to once again lead the Liberal party through the country’s next general election.
“When the election comes, when Canadians need to make a consequential choice in this consequential moment, it will be the honour of my life to lead us through it,” he said.