Polievre unfazed by NDP non-confidence announcement

Friday morning, federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh posted a letter to his social media saying he and his party were ready to vote to bring down the Liberal government.

This was the latest in a week of big headlines from Parliament Hill, including a fall economic update with a much higher deficit and the resignation of two Liberal cabinet ministers – Sean Fraser and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Pierre Polievre, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, joined the Evan Bray Show on Dec. 20, shortly after the NDP news broke.

Listen to the full interview here:

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

My obvious first question is NDP leader Jagmeet Singh just announcing to Canadians he’s putting forward what he calls a clear motion on non-confidence in the next sitting of the House of Commons. Your reaction to that?

Polievre: We’ve seen this movie before. Jagmeet Singh said in September that he was going to turn against Trudeau, and then he voted again and again and again all the way through the fall session to keep Trudeau in power. In fact, just 10 days ago, Singh voted to keep Trudeau in power. Had he not done so, my non-confidence motion, which was made up of Singh’s own words would have passed, and we would now be 10 days into an election campaign.

So, let’s not get carried away. Singh has stuntmen. Singh has told these tricks before, and we’ll see what he’s actually going to do and when he’s going to do it. It’s also funny that he announced this three days after Parliament closed when he couldn’t introduce a non-confidence motion.

The Liberal government has been suggesting, with the threat of tariffs and Trump taking office, this is the absolute worst time for a federal election. Would calling an election right not be reckless for Canada?

Polievre: No, not calling an election right now would be reckless for Canada, because we don’t have a government. We have a chaotic, costly clown show.

Look, on Monday, Trudeau’s own Deputy Prime Minister said she has no longer any confidence in him and resigned the day she was going to introduce his fall budget. That budget was to show the depth that is a mind-blowing, $62 billion, 55 per cent over the promise they made only eight months ago. [Chrystia Freeland did not explicitly say she no longer had confidence in the Prime Minister in her letter, though some have interpreted it as such]

This while after Trudeau has lost control of the borders, lost control of immigration, spending, debt, taxes, inflation, where crime and chaos are rampaging through our streets, and 60 of Trudeau’s own MPs want him gone. So this kind of chaos cannot go on during a trade negotiation. That’s precisely why we need an election now.

If you were Prime Minister when the threat of tariffs came out by Donald Trump, what would your strategy have been?

Polievre: Stand up for Canada. First of all, we need to be strong. And we need to say, ‘Look, Mr. President, we’ll never be the 51st state. We are an independent, self-reliant nation that is proud of its past and its future. We are proud to also to be friends with our closest neighbour, which is the biggest military and economic superpower in the history of the world.’

We understand his concerns about Trudeau ruining our border and our immigration and military, that’s why we need to fix those things. Let’s reinforce the border to stop drugs, guns, stolen cars and human trafficking. We need to rebuild our military with a warrior culture, not a woke culture. We need to also reinforce our economic sovereignty by repealing anti-energy laws like C-69 and axing the carbon tax so that we can bring home resource production to our country and become less reliant on the Americans, and that’s what I will do when I’m Prime Minister.

Bray: You’d be stepping into a federal government with an empty bank account. So, how do you attack that

Polievre: With common sense. I mean, look, everything is out of control after nine years of this NDP-Liberal government, we need a Prime Minister who can take back control of spending. I will cut bureaucracy, consultants, foreign aid and corporate welfare, and bring in a dollar-for-dollar law that requires we find one-dollar savings for every new dollar of spending.

We will also unleash growth in this country again, which is to say, produce more oil, gas, uranium and other minerals that generate tax revenue through a booming economy, bigger paychecks and more successful companies, rather than just raising taxes, like the NDP-Liberals always do. So that’s how we’re going to fix the budget, and we need an election now to do it

Bray: How do you balance the political side of your job today, but also uniting the country if you’re the next prime minister?

Polievre: We have to stop attacking the regions of Canada and start supporting oil and gas and resource sectors. We have to shrink the size and power of Ottawa, to give provinces and people more self-control and autonomy. We need a Prime Minister who unites our people rather than dividing our country, as Trudeau and the NDP-Liberals have been doing for the last nine years. So that’s the approach that I propose, and now it’s time to bring it home.

Bray: Is that hard to do, though, because there will be people who don’t vote for you? How do you pull those sides together?

Polievre: By giving them back control of their lives, too many people feel like the government has robbed them of the Canadian promise. You know, it used to be that if you worked hard, you could earn a powerful paycheck that bought affordable food and homes in safe neighbourhoods. That promise is broken after nine years of Trudeau and the NDP-Liberals and so how do we bring it back? We axe the carbon tax, we take GST off new homes to save up to $50,000 on a purchase. We fix the budget to bring down inflation, interest rates and income taxes we bring, we stop crime with toughened laws that lock up repeat offenders and keep Canadians safe from the out-of-control crime we see before us today, here,

Bray: We are hearing the Prime Minister is taking the holidays to reflect on what he needs to do. Do you have any sources giving you any indication of what he’s going to do and what his decision will be?

Polievre: No, I don’t, and I don’t think it matters, because all of the other replacements are just like Justin. They all voted for his policies that doubled housing costs, doubled our debt, doubled gun crime, and doubled the number of people relying on food banks. They all support his crazy carbon tax scheme that would raise the tax up to 61 cents a leader. So I don’t really think it matters whether it’s Trudeau or Singh or Carney or Freeland or any other NDP-Liberal leader, and they’re all exactly the same. So it’s time for an axe the tax election so that we can elect a common sense Conservative government that will put Canada first.

Bray: You talk about axing the tax, the gun control bills, inflation, interest rates – does the setting right of that set the stage for your vision of Canada?

Polievre: I think my vision of Canada is the only one that Canadians recognize. It’s what I’m talking about – it’s bringing home the country that they knew and that they still love, a place where you have the freedom to earn a great living and live a great life, freedom of expression, where you have safe streets for your kids to play in, where you can afford a home and you can get a great job in our energy sector, where our farmers can afford to grow the food we need because we get rid of their carbon tax. And that’s the vision that all Canadians can unite around, and it’s what we’re going to bring