According to Pierre Poilievre, Prime Minister Trudeau is an “extremist”

Justin Trudeau, according to federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, is an “extremist” and someone who has “dressed up in racist clothing so many times that I can’t remember them all.”

During an August 2 interview with our sister site Sudbury.com, Poilievre spent a lot of time talking about his political opponent, the Liberal prime minister of Canada.

After a nearly 10-minute speech in the blazing sun to 50 supporters gathered at Manitoulin Transport in Lively, Poilievre repeated several slogans that have become standard on his campaign and in products sold on his website.

On rising costs: “Jobs don’t pay: You create them, Trudeau takes them.” Poilievre’s promotion of trade schools over universities is “shoes, not suits,” and on banning rifle hunting, he said: “I want to protect Canadians from criminals; Trudeau wants to protect turkeys from hunters.”

He also proposed “jail, not bail,” referring to his initiatives to tighten crime laws.

Following the event, Sudbury.com had five minutes to speak with Poilievre, as did other local media.

We began by asking about the numerous publications that have reported Poilievre’s interactions with groups perceived to support far-right views. To get a sense of what these critics are getting wrong, we could have said, “Those who don’t support you accuse you of flirting with the far-right…” before Poilievre interrupted to ask, “What do you mean?”

When Sudbury.com mentioned his interactions with groups that include Diagolon, who was in Sudbury recently, he asked, “What is that? I don’t know what that is.”

We explained that this is a group that has been flagged as extremist by the RCMP, the OPP and the Canadian government. Poilievre said it was “an example of gaslighting by liberal NDP extremists trying to convince people they are wrong.”

“Justin Trudeau, Mr. Blackface, who has dressed up in racist costumes so many times he can’t remember them all, wants to tell a single mother she’s a racist because she can’t and won’t pay his carbon tax. They want to call a truck driver a racist because he can’t afford a house and he doesn’t support them,” he said.

Sudbury.com told him that didn’t quite answer the question. He replied, “I know what you’re talking about, well, that’s what I’m talking about.”

However, he added that he wanted to address the issue of extremism.

“I’m talking about the extremism that 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 passes censorship laws, that Margaret Atwood, have you heard of her? She says it’s creeping totalitarianism. It’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 because it was not relevant and we had limited time.

He said, “Of course we have a big problem with extremism in this country, and it’s the prime minister. He’s an extremist.”

Poileivre said the prime minister “wants to decriminalize crack and cocaine, wants to pay for it, to give away taxpayer-funded opioids that are killing our children. Wants to ban cars that people need to get where they’re going,” but did not provide details or address the policies he was referring to.

Following up on the original question, Sudbury.com asked about his critics who say he is attacking segments of the 2SLGBTQ population, and he interrupted again, asking for specific dates, times, and places where he made the comments. Sudbury.com said it was well-documented in media reports, and Poilievre responded, “Where?”

Going further, Sudbury.com asked about polls on both sides of the border that indicate many are looking for a more anti-politician, one who is not entrenched in government. We asked Poilievre, as a career politician who has played the game, why should people believe he is any different?

He asked, “Excuse me, what game was I playing?”

Sudbury.com responded: “It’s like a political game.”

He stressed the importance of experience in meeting challenges.

“You have a heart attack and you need heart surgery, you hire someone who was a heart surgeon and had operated on patients successfully; you wouldn’t say, ‘Oh gosh, that heart surgeon was never an accountant. He was never a truck driver or a mechanic.'”

Poileivre said, “If you want someone who can deliver affordable housing, hire the guy who was housing minister when rent was $950 a year and a new home could be purchased for an average of $450,000 a year.”

Although Singh and Trudeau refer to Poilievre as Minister of Housing, technically Poilievre has never held that specific title.

For nine months in 2015, during the final year of the Stephen Harper administration, he served as Minister of Employment and Social Development, assuming responsibility for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

Reports indicate that in the 2015–16 fiscal year, 3,742 non-profit units and 506 co-operative units were completed across Canada with financial support from the federal government.

“If you want someone who can deliver low inflation, you’re going to hire someone who has been part of a government that has delivered extremely low inflation in the past,” Poilievre continued. “So if you want someone to do something, you hire someone who has done it, and I’ve done it.”

Sudbury.com asked if this means that experience is more important than new ideas and a fresh, new face when choosing the next prime minister.

“I don’t know if you can look at it one way or another, but compared to the current government, I’m a new face because they’ve been operating for nine years, doubling the cost of housing, raising taxes, penalizing work and doubling the cost of housing,” he said.

“These things are old. The new approach is to cut taxes, build houses, fix the budget, stop 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 that “a young person cannot own their own home” and that the situation is the result of actions by Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh, whom Poilievre called “Sellout Singh” because of the coalition he formed with the Liberal Party as leader of the NDP.

Poilievre said that before they took office, the inability to afford a home “never existed.”

“These are the direct result of the government’s inflationary policies, which have robbed the working class in order to favour a very small minority of privileged and wealthy elites who are closely tied to the government. I intend to reverse all of these policies,” he said.

“I will require municipalities to speed up and reduce the cost of issuing permits for affordable housing, selling 6,000 federal buildings and thousands of acres of federal land for development,” Poilievre said.

“We will have a ‘bring it home’ tax cut that rewards work, saving and investment so we can bring home big paychecks and manufacturing to this country. And of course we will abolish the carbon tax so we can bring home affordable food.”

After the interview, Poilievre asked Sudbury.com about the recording we made. “I hope you play it in its entirety without any edits,” he said.

He was told that this was for accurate note-taking.

Sudbury.com referred to two cameras and assistants who were monitoring the event, telling the Conservative leader that his team recorded the entire thing.

“Yes, we will make sure it is discussed appropriately,” Poilievre said.

Jenny Lamothe is a reporter for Sudbury.com