Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre likened deficits to ‘gas on an inflationary fire’, creating an ‘incendiary’ crisis, during a speech before his troops on Wednesday, otherwise silent on the important fires of forests currently affecting Quebec.
“Today we see a human tragedy,” dropped Mr. Poilievre to start the question period in Ottawa, adding that Canadians “are going to need to leave their homes”.
He was not referring to the disaster of the forest fires which caused the evacuation of thousands of Quebecers, but rather to the increase in the key rate to 4.75% by the Bank of Canada. An increase he says is caused by “inflationary spending” by the federal government.
This theme entirely monopolized his speech to other Conservative MPs on Wednesday morning, when he announced that he was embarking on a campaign of filibuster as of Wednesday evening to prevent the adoption of the budget implementation law. of 2023. The Trudeau government intends to pass this bill, named C-47, before the summer break in June.
A crisis… of debt
Pierre Poilievre was applauded wildly after demanding a plan to return to balanced budgets from the Prime Minister, addressing him directly for the figure of speech.
“Justin Trudeau, you are leading us towards a real debt crisis for Canadians across the country,” he warned, in a speech first in French of about ten minutes in front of his caucus and the parliamentary press. In particular, he argued that Canadian families are the most indebted of the G7 countries.
Just before, his party was directly attacked by the federal Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, about comments made on the Internet on the forest fires. According to Mr. Guilbeault, “that says a lot about [l’ancien] Conservative government” that one of its ministers, Maxime Bernier, shares on Twitter his suspicions that “green terrorists” are at the origin of the forest fires.
I bet a good portion of the wildfires were started by green terrorists to boost their climate change campaign.
The far left are adept at inventing and creating crises that they can then exploit.https://t.co/XSP4rAhjS9
— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) June 5, 2023
Mr. Bernier is now seeking election under the People’s Party of Canada banner in a Manitoba by-election.
“It’s still incredible that this guy was Minister of Foreign Affairs under a Conservative government,” said Mr. Guilbeault, referring the insult to the official opposition in the Commons.
Silence noticed
Then, during question period, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised his voice after being repeatedly asked questions about his government’s spending. He underlined having noticed that the theme of forest fires was not mentioned by the questions coming from the Conservative benches.
“Is he going so low that he exploits these fires for political points to create a diversion for his inflationary policies? replied Mr. Poilievre.
“The Leader of the Opposition views the wildfires that are driving communities to flight and destroying homes as just a distraction, and not a concern of people from coast to coast, it’s shameful chanted Mr. Trudeau in English, accusing the Conservatives of not having a real plan to fight climate change.
After an intervention by the leader of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, who pointed out to him that Wednesday was “clean air day”, Justin Trudeau deflected the question to again accuse the Conservatives of not knowing whether “yes or no, we should act to fight against climate change”.
However, the tone was quite different at the start of the week. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has offered his collaboration to help the government’s actions to help “Quebec families and communities [qui] are hit by large forest fires. »
Liberal Minister Bill Blair replied that he appreciates “the strong advocacy of every member of this House” in these circumstances. The Bloc Québécois had also offered the government [sa] outstretched hand and its collaboration” to send aid to those affected by the forest fires.