Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of lighting Canada’s economy on fire while speaking at a press conference.
Poilievre made the comments at a truck depot in Mississauga, Ont. where he said Trudeau “lit” the metaphorical fire that is burning Canada down with his taxes and inflationary spending.
“Justin Trudeau promising to fight inflation is like a pyromaniac, promising to fight a fire. He’s the one that lit the fire with his taxes and his deficits,” Poilievre said. “Every day you see him in these photo ops, know the money that he’s spitting out of his mouth is money that will come out of your pocket, just like it has for the last eight years.”
Poilievre announced his Conservative party will be making three demands to Justin Trudeau for the forthcoming federal budget which will be announced on April 16.
“Axe the Trudeau tax on food and farmers two, build homes, not bureaucracies, and three, cap the spending with a dollar-for-dollar law to bring down inflation and interest rates,” explained Poilievre.
He also wants the government to remove the tax on food and farmers by passing Bill C234.
The bill would amend the current Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to take the carbon tax off farmers, barns, and drying, which Poilievre said will provide food price relief to Canadians.
He demands the government “build homes and not bureaucracy by requiring cities permit 15% more housing completions each year as a condition of receiving federal funds.”
Thirdly, Poilievre wants the government to implement his “dollar for dollar” law to bring down inflation and interest rates.
Poilievre told True North what he would cut to meet Canada’s NATO target of spending 2% of Canada’s GDP on defence if he was in charge of the budget.
“We’re going to cut back office bureaucracy, botched procurements, and foreign aid to dictators, terrorists, and multinational bureaucracies,” he said. “We’ll bring that money home and invest it in our military.”
Poilievre told True North he would spend the increased funds he plans to invest in defence on the front lines.
“Better equipment and better resources for the men and women in uniform. More reservists who are not only equipped to prepare Canada for an armed conflict but also can apply the military skills they learned in the civilian economy,” Poilievre said.
In his speech, with truckers from the Rosedale Group behind him, he outlined several economic problems Canadians are facing such as a 78.5% increase in Canadians who use food banks since 2019, and families choosing affordability over nutrition.
“In Oromocto, 50 military families are eating at the local food bank. Military families who risked their lives for us are not getting enough to pay for their groceries,” he said. “These results are the direct consequences of Justin Trudeau and the NDP policies.”
Poilievre took aim at the increased money supply he attributed to Trudeau interfering in the Bank of Canada by getting them to print money to pay for his spending.
“When you double the national debt, you drive up demand, which builds up goods. You print $600 billion of cash, and that causes inflation just like it has everywhere and always over the last 5000 years of economic history,”
However, the Bank of Canada has denied that it printed cash to finance the federal government in a series of posts on what was then Twitter on Aug. 25, 2022.
True North reached out to Poilievre and was directed to past comments made by the Conservative leader.