Conservative leadership candidate Jean Charest announced Wednesday that if elected and becomes prime minister, he would criminalize blockades that target critical infrastructure.
The proposal, a thinly veiled attack on his opponent Pierre Poilievre, notes in a press release that MPs ‘should never use their status to support unlawful blockades of critical infrastructure and supply chains’.
Mr. Poilievre, who is seen as the leader of the Conservative race, had encouraged a convoy of protesters who arrived in Ottawa in late January to demand an end to the vaccination requirement and refused to leave for three weeks, prompting local elected officials , the police and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to describe the situation as a crisis.
“The rule of law and the Canadian legal system are not a buffet, writes the Charest team. Elected parliamentarians cannot choose when to follow our laws as they please.”
In a recent interview with The Canadian Press, the former Quebec premier made an unsubtle reference to Mr. Poilievre, noting that he had called for an end to the rail blockades organized by protesters in 2020 over the construction of a pipeline in the territory of a First Nation in British Columbia and that, two years later, he felt that the seat of truckers is a different situation.
In video: The ups and downs of Charest in politics
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