Poilievre will do ‘anything to win’ and must condemn Alex Jones endorsement: Trudeau

OTTAWA – As the Liberals try to reverse their political fortunes with the latest federal budget, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepped up attacks on his Conservative opponent Wednesday, linking him to a far-right American figure.

Polls suggest the Liberal budget released last week has yet to resonate, but Trudeau suggested it’s more of a plan than what Poilievre has to offer, other than trying to exploit public anxieties.

During a budget promotion stop in Oakville, Ont., Trudeau was asked about Poilievre’s recent appearance alongside anti-carbon pricing activists in Atlantic Canada waving expletive-laden flags bearing the prime minister’s name.

Each leader has to decide how they are going to operate, Trudeau said.

“Are they the type of leader who is going to exacerbate divisions, fears and polarization in our country, launch personal attacks and welcome support from conspiracy theorists and extremists? Because that is exactly what Pierre Poilievre continues to do.”

A spokesman for the Conservative leader said Poilievre “made a brief, impromptu stop” when he noticed protesters during a drive between events in the region on Tuesday night.

Sebastian Skamski said Poilievre greeted them because he saw it as a “carbon tax protest” and because of their outspoken opposition to federal consumer carbon pricing.

If Trudeau is concerned about extremism in Canada, Skamski said, he should pay more attention to anti-war protests in Gaza. Some of them have included protesters praising the deadly October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas. Both Trudeau and Poilievre have condemned that rhetoric.

Videos posted to a Facebook group called “National Carbon Tax Protest” show Poilievre shaking hands with some of the protesters and introducing himself to a woman as “the guy who is going to eliminate the tax.”

In the video, Poilievre says he was traveling from PEI to Nova Scotia when he saw the group, which he mentions hearing about on the news. “I will reduce the tax,” he tells protesters, adding that others support his cause.

He mentions Trudeau by name and says that “people believed his lies” and that “everything he said was nonsense.” He then tours the site and is shown vehicles that the owners say they have slept in for more than three weeks, a scene reminiscent of the 2022 “Freedom Convoy” in downtown Ottawa.

At one point, a man asks Poilievre for a photo, suggesting that they pose in front of a row of flags, one of which includes a slur about Trudeau. Poilievre can be heard suggesting that they meet somewhere else.

Poilievre then praises the group and tells them to “keep it up” and called their protest “a good old-fashioned Canadian tax revolt.”

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh told reporters at an event in Edmonton that a leader must unite people, while

Leaders are supposed to unite people, but Poilievre “is irresponsible with language” and “stokes division,” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Wednesday during an event in Edmonton.

At the event in Oakville, Trudeau was at pains to point out that Poilievre had done nothing to reject the endorsement of notorious right-wing commentator Alex Jones.

Jones was ordered to pay nearly $1 billion in damages to the families of victims of the deadly 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, which he long described as a hoax.

“This is the kind of man who says Pierre Poilievre has the right ideas to take the country to the right, to conspiracy theories, to extremism, to polarization,” Trudeau said.

“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, anything to fuel negativity and fear.”

When asked about Jones, Skamski said “we don’t follow him” or listen to what he has to say.

“It is the support of ordinary, hard-working Canadians that the Conservatives are working to earn. “Unlike Justin Trudeau, we don’t pay attention to what any American says.”

Trudeau’s Liberals have spent most of the past year well behind Poilievre’s Conservatives, polls suggest.

Ahead of a federal election due no later than October 2025, the Liberals are using their latest budget to address what they see as the biggest reasons younger Canadians are turning to the Conservatives.

It focuses largely on measures aimed at alleviating the rising cost of living and a housing crisis that has left millennial and Gen Z Canadians locked out of the market.

Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland are selling the spending plan as one that seeks to deliver fairness to young people by requiring the wealthiest Canadians and corporations to pay more taxes on their profits.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2024.