The Conservative leader is facing questions after stopping to cheer on an anti-carbon tax convoy camp near the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where he bluntly accused the prime minister of lying about “everything.”
In response, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Pierre Poilievre of welcoming “the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists.”
In videos posted to social media, the Opposition leader is seen thanking and encouraging protesters who have camped out in what some participants have described as a convoy-style “hold the line protest” since the carbon tax increase on April 1 — a nod to the 2022 convoy protest in downtown Ottawa.
In video filmed by the protesters, who have been living at the site for three weeks, Poilievre tells the group to “keep it up” and calls their protest “a good, old-fashioned Canadian tax revolt.”
“Everyone hates the tax because everyone’s been screwed over,” Poilievre is heard saying in the video, which shows protesters with “Axe the tax” and “F–k Trudeau ” signs and flags. A car with ‘Make Canada Great Again’ scrawled on the rear window is seen parked at the site.
“People believed his lies. Everything he said was bullshit, from top to bottom.”
In another video from his visit, Poilievre, who has been beating Trudeau’s Liberals in the polls since last summer, is seen leaving a RV with a drawing of the black and white Diagolon flag on the door.
According to RCMP documents tabled at the Emergencies Act inquiry last year, the national police force believes Diagolon is a militia-like network whose supporters subscribe to an “accelerationist” ideology — the idea that a civil war or the collapse of western governments is inevitable and ought to be sped up.
The group’s founder disputes that characterization and argues it’s a fictitious meme.
In that video, a man asks Poilievre for a photo and suggests they pose in front of the infamous expletive flag about Trudeau. Poilievre can be heard suggesting they pose somewhere else.
Trudeau says Poilievre will do ‘anything to win’
Poilievre’s visit with the protesters has caused a stir among his political opponents.
“Every politician has to make choices about what kind of leader they want to be,” Trudeau said when asked about Poilievre’s comments during a media availability Wednesday.
“Are they the kind of leader that is going to exacerbate divisions, fears and polarization in our country, make personal attacks and welcome the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists? Because that’s exactly what Pierre Poilievre continues to do, not just when you see him engaging with members of Diagolon but also when he refuses to condemn and reject the endorsement of Alex Jones.”
Jones, a notorious broadcaster who has been ordered to pay more than a billion dollars in damages to the families of the Sandy Hook victims after claiming the school shooting was a hoax, has called Poilievre the “real deal” and recently reiterated his support. In 2012, an armed man killed 26 people at the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, most of them children between the ages of six and seven.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of exacerbating ‘divisions, fears and polarization’ in Canada after a social media post showed Poilievre at the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border speaking with anti-carbon tax protesters.
“This is the kind of man who’s saying Pierre Poilievre has the right ideas to bring the country towards the right,” said Trudeau during a stop in the Toronto area, where he was touting his recent budget. Recent polling suggests last week’s budget release hasn’t done much to sway voters.
“So the fact that Pierre Poilievre hasn’t stood up to condemn that endorsement, the fact that he continues to encourage the kind of divisive approaches to Canada that I don’t think Canadians want to see, really shows that he will do anything to win.”
Poilievre’s team says they don’t follow Alex Jones
In a statement issued to CBC News, Poilievre’s spokesperson Sebastian Skamski said “we do not follow” Jones “or listen to what he has to say.”
“Unlike Justin Trudeau, we’re not paying attention to what some American is saying,” said the statement.
Skamski did not respond to CBC’s question about whether Poilievre was aware of the Diagolon symbol.
Poilievre denounced the group as “dirtbags” after their founder threatened to sexually assault his wife during an online stream last year.
Skamski said Poilievre noticed an anti-carbon tax protest while driving between stops in Atlantic Canada.
“As a vocal opponent of Justin Trudeau’s punishing carbon tax which has driven up the cost of groceries, gas, and heating, he made a brief, impromptu stop,” he said.
“If Justin Trudeau is concerned about extremism, he should look at parades on Canadian streets openly celebrating Hamas’ slaughter of Jews on Oct. 7.”
The comment appears to cite a recent pro-Palestinian rally on Parliament Hill. Ottawa police say they’re investigating allegations of hate speech after widely shared video showed a man on a megaphone praising Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians that killed more than 1,200, according to Israeli figures. More than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s military campaign since then, health officials in the territory say.
Both Trudeau and Poilievre have condemned the protesters’ rhetoric.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh accused Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of being ‘irresponsible with language.’ When asked about Poilievre’s stop at an anti-carbon tax protest in Atlantic Canada, Singh said Poilievre ‘will do anything it takes to divide Canadians.’
In a separate news conference, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh accused Poilievre of deliberately dividing Canadians.
“A leader shouldn’t be someone that is irresponsible with language, that stokes division, that stokes hatred,” he said.
“He is someone that’s been endorsed by the likes of Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson. This is a divisive person who is giving life to and giving breath to folks to continue his irresponsible approach, to his divisive approach.”
Poilievre’s visit ‘risky,’ says pollster
David Coletto, founder and CEO of polling firm Abacus Data, said part of Poilievre’s strategy in visiting the protest encampment might have been to motivate members of his base who are drawn by Maxime Bernier’s populist People’s Party of Canada — which took four per cent of the vote in the last election.
“But I think it’s a real risky play because I think this is a protest that seemingly is masquerading as a policy critique but really is extremism,” he said.
“And that’s always the Achilles heel for Conservatives in Canada.”
Coletto said Poilievre is riding high in the polls thanks to people who are upset with the prime minister and want change. He added that coalition “is quite fragile.”
“This might be a signal that the Conservatives might be getting over-confident that pollsters like me telling them repeatedly that they’ve got a 20 point lead nationally means he can go and do things that might otherwise, if it became widespread, turn some of his new supporters off,” he said.
“I think he’s risking fracturing that new coalition.”
Trudeau’s comments on Wednesday follow new Liberal attack ads linking Poilievre to Jones.
Coletto said so far there’s no evidence they’re making Canadians less confident in the Conservative leader.
“But that doesn’t mean over time, does the accumulation of all of these evidence points lead to someone maybe saying, ‘I’m uncomfortable with him being the prime minister of Canada?” he said.
“So I think it all depends on how often this might happen and, more importantly, how many people are aware of it.”