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With the Liberal Party leader race heating up and U.S. President Donald Trump’s first week in office, one Canadian political leader is weighing in.
Conservative Party Leader, Pierre Poilievre, was a guest on the Roy Green Show.
The pair discussed Justin Trudeau, what Poilievre plans to tackle if elected, Trump and who’s running for Liberal Party Leadership.
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You can listen to the full interview here.
The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Green: What’s the greater challenge for you — recovering from 10 years of Trudeau, or engaging with the United States president who might drop a blanket 25 per cent tariff on Canada?
Poilievre: I think the two are linked. After 10 years of the Liberal government, President Trump looks north and spots weakness and he is someone who profited and made billions of dollars in the most cutthroat economic jungle in the world — New York’s real estate market.
He knows that weakness and profits from it, and so what we need to do is become a strong country again. We need a massive patriotic tax cut that will re-energize and reinvigorate our businesses and workers to take on their American competitors and the world.
We need to repeal the anti-energy laws C69 to unleash a massive energy and resource boom for our workers and businesses. We need to cut bureaucracy, consultants, foreign aid, corporate welfare and other waste and put that money to work, lowering debt and lowering taxes.
Logically, what are you going to be able to tackle first?
Poilievre: I’m going to tackle it all. Axe the carbon tax is job one on day one. We’re going to immediately introduce a budget that will include massive reforms like repealing C69 and rapidly replacing it with a law that quickly approves our projects.
We’re going to introduce the biggest crackdown on crime in the history of Canada by repealing the “hug a thug,” catch and release laws C 75, C5 and C83.
All of that’s going to happen immediately because we have to start turning the ship around on day one. We can’t wait. It will take four years to have the ship fully turned around and headed back in the right direction, but we can’t dawdle. We have to move quickly.
Do you think it will be helpful to you to have President Trump in the White House?
Poilievre: I don’t know. I just have to focus on Canada. I don’t work for any American or foreign politician. I work for Canadians and Canadians want me to undertake this job to restore common sense. I’m going to be putting Canada first.
Trump wants to put America first, good for him. I’m putting Canada first. And the difficult news is for some south of the border is they’re going to be faced with a fierce free enterprise Canadian economy.
Our businesses are not going to have their hands tied behind their backs anymore with destructive liberal policies of high taxes, red tape, environmental fanaticism — all that will be over so American companies will no longer be able to steal our investment in our jobs as they have after the nine years that Mark Carney and his agenda has prevailed on Justin Trudeau.
What do you make of Mark Carney?
Poilievre: He’s entitled, a self-serving global elitist. He has been at the summit of the World Economic Forum agenda for the last 25 years and he’s been able to push his radical policies that destroy the working class while enriching the billionaire elite.
He’s bragged about how he has lobbied for so-called green policies that went on to enrich him and boost the profits of the companies he’s been part of not through free enterprise or competition, but through government handouts and favourable regulations that drive the cost up for working people. So it’s not surprising that he feels a sense of entitlement.
Nobody believes Justin Trudeau has been running this country. Trudeau is a puppet, and Carney’s been pulling the strings, so it’s not surprising that he feels entitled to walk in and take over with only the support of 20,000 Liberal insiders. He thinks he can rule over 41 million Canadians.
What do you make of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith for stepping up and making her case about respecting Alberta’s energy directly to President Trump?
Poilievre: We have 10 different prime ministers because we have no Prime Minister.
How many governors have you heard from in the U.S. in this dispute? None, because they have a president with a strong mandate.
We have a weak and departing lame duck Liberal Prime Minister. You have “carbon tax Carney” and “carbon tax Chrystia” fighting for power rather than fighting for Canada. And so now the premiers have had to step up and do the job that is constitutionally the job of a federal Prime Minister.
What are you planning to do about our border security?
Poilievre: We need to secure our points of entry. We also have now the power to send people back. They’re supposed to declare their refugee status in the U.S. if that’s where they land first.
I want to bring in last in, first out policy. So if you’re the last person in the country, you will be the first one to have your case heard.
That sounds counterintuitive, but this is what it would do. It would signal to any false refugee claimant that if they come to Canada, they’re not going to be staying here for seven years while we pay for their lawyers, food, housing and other handouts. Their case will be heard within five or 10 days. If they are not a real refugee, they’ll be sent back to their country of origin.
It will not be worth the cost to come in the first place if you’re not a real refugee. Bringing in that policy will mean the number of fraudulent claims will plummet because the word will get out that it’s not worth the time to try and rip off the Canadian system.
Poilievre told Radio-Canada this week that a government led by him would cut the number of federal public servants — but he doesn’t mind if they work from home.
When asked if U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order sending federal workers back to the office five days a week is a good idea, Poilievre said that what matters is whether or not public servants do the work.
He said that work is not getting done now within the federal government, though he fell short of going into detail about public servants’ productivity.
— with files from Canadian Press
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