Conservative politicians from around the world – including Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom – came together over the weekend to discuss shared economic and cultural values among the centre-right parties.
Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre met the new leader of the U.K. Conservatives, Kemi Badenoch, posting a picture of the two Tory leaders on X. Poilievre said that Badenoch “stands for common sense, freedom, and family,” and that she is attempting to defeat “toxic wokeism.”
In a video posted to Badenoch’s X feed, the two leaders can be seen discussing the threat of hostile and intimidating protests and how liberal values have been hijacked by the radical left.
“We now have a scenario where I see all the liberal values being hacked. Free protest, or the right to protest, is now used as a cover for intimidation,” said Badenoch.
Poilievre explained how the left has adapted and disguised Marxist values while portraying them as liberal values, drawing the analogy to a bank robber who changes his name after a robbery.
“They were Marxists, then that got found out. Then they became communists, then they became – “oh no we’re not communists, we’re socialists.” And then they became democratic socialists, and once that was a nightmare then they said “no no no, we’re social democrats.”
Badenoch ends the video by accepting that the U.K. Conservatives lost the previous election because they had failed to champion conservative economic and cultural values, intending to turn the party around as leader.
Badenoch came to Washington D.C. to attend the International Democratic Union Forum – an annual forum for prominent centre-right parties across the Western world to gather together and discuss matters of common interest.
In Washington, Badenoch also met with Conservative MP Jamil Jivani and the Vice President-elect of the United States JD Vance, taking a group picture with one another that was later uploaded to X.
In a comment to True North, Jivani said that he told Vance – a longtime friend of his from their time at Yale Law School – that Canada remains the United States’ greatest ally and talked about the effect tariffs would have on the Canadian economy.
“The Vice President-elect knows my views on these matters well. I have expressed to him that Canada is America’s best friend and ally, and a reliable trade and security partner,” said Jivani.
“I’ve shared feedback from Canadian businesses and workers, including those in my constituency, about the impact tariffs would have on our economy. I have also expressed to him things that I have heard from constituents about the Canada-US border and the need to work together to protect our collective security.”
Jivani did not say what he and Badenoch had discussed during their time in DC.
Vance had recently commented on a petition Jivani had started last week to raise awareness about bigotry towards Christians in Canada, praising Jivani for “speaking the truth.”