9 hours Ago By Geoff Russ
Article content Last Saturday in Ottawa, Pierre Poilievre delivered what many described as the most important speech of his life. For weeks, the Liberals have rapidly regained ground in the polls following Justin Trudeau’s announcement that he was leaving politics. Amidst a Liberal leadership race that former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney seems to already have in the bag, the NDP vote is collapsing , with the governing Liberals being the main beneficiaries.
Poilievre needed to make a splash to regain control of the narrative and reframe the election on his terms in the wake of Donald Trump’s threats of economic warfare. For about an hour, the Conservative leader outlined his vision for Canada with more detail and vigour than ever before. The rather muted reaction to it among the Liberal party and its loyal cadre of boosters in the media is a good indication of the speech’s success.
As Conservatives gathered for Poilievre’s speech, Trump was the obvious elephant in the room. Many in the audience were anticipating how, if he became prime minister, the Conservative leader would pledge to deal with the unfriendly American president. As expected, Poilievre promised to match Trump’s tariffs on a dollar-for-dollar basis and ensure the Canadian economy would be protected when engaging with Trump.
This is more or less the consensus view held among Canada’s political parties. What was more interesting was Poilievre’s offer to improve the Canadian economy from within. Notably, he promised the largest and most “ patriotic ” tax cut in the country’s history, perfectly in line with his existing pledge of “ powerful paycheques ” for Canadians after years of inflation and rising tax burdens .
Restoring the “ promise of Canada ” was another big part of his speech and a way to assure Canadians, especially younger voters, that the possibility of social mobility in Canada is not yet extinct. The threat of Trump’s economic warfare will still be one of the top issues in the upcoming election, but the affordability crisis plaguing younger Canadians has not abated. Housing costs remain the biggest reason for that crisis, with the price of renting and owning homes more dire than at any point in living memory.
Within his speech, Poilievre reiterated his promise to slash the fees and red tape currently attached to homebuilding as part of his plan to boost the housing supply and help restore affordability. Having once planned to fight an election on Trudeau’s carbon tax, Poilievre has kept affordability front and centre during his shift that began on Saturday. He also managed to retain the promise of eliminating the carbon tax, pouncing on the fact that Carney will retain carbon pricing as prime minister.
Carney may have tried to assure Canadians that they will not have to pay for his reformed carbon pricing plan, but he deserves to be taken with a grain of salt. There is no world in which Carney’s carbon pricing, that includes a proposed “ carbon tariff ” will not be felt by working- and middle-class Canadians. If the Liberal leadership frontrunner believes that the added emission costs borne by producers of steel and other products will not be passed down to consumers, his economic credentials should be called into question.
On the other hand, its not clear how much he can be trusted. Carney has already pledged in English to use emergency powers to force major projects on the provinces while ruling it out when interviewed in Quebec media. Carney has also pledged to balance the budget in three years, but also stated that Canada needs to boost its spending on decarbonization from $20 billion per year to $80 billion.
The budget deficit in the fall economic statement delivered in December was over $60 billion already. After almost a decade of striving to keep Canadian energy projects to a minimum, the Liberals have finally begun muttering about the necessity of building new east-west pipelines as a means of securing Canadian supply chains from American tariffs. Carney himself could not bring himself to voice a clear stance on the matter, saying that he supported the “ concept ” of new pipelines, whatever that really means.
Even when his campaign finally released a wordy document meant to resemble a policy plan, it was noticeably devoid of specifics aside from generic pledges to review spending and “invest”. As it stands, there is only one party represented in the House of Commons that stands unambiguously committed to actually building a new network of pipelines and export facilities for LNG and oil. As Poilievre himself said in his speech, if voters want Conservative policies, they will have to vote Conservative.
Poilievre’s speech should put to bed the narrative that he lacks policy specifics. For over a year, the Conservative party has had a 49 page policy declaration on their website, stuffed with ideas that can be viewed at any time. Along with Poilievre reiterating his pledge on pipelines, taxes, and housing, he also laid out his plan to build a new Arctic military base at Iqaluit and icebreakers to help patrol the polar region.
There were far more policy specifics in Poilievre’s speech related to policing and cultural policy, but it is clear what Canadians can expect from a Conservative government. National Post.
