Poilievre pledges to bring back the ‘promise of Canada’ as he tries to trigger an early election

OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pledged to bring back the “promise of Canada” if he forms government, but he failed to convince other opposition parties to support his motion to force a snap election.

Poilievre introduced his non-confidence motion against the minority government on Tuesday. Already, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP have said that they will not support it when it goes to a vote on Wednesday, meaning the Liberals will hold onto power.

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“The problem that I have with this motion is that it is too simple. It seems to me that we could have supported it with something more relevant,” said Bloc MP Sebastien Lemire.

In a speech to the House of Commons, Poilievre outlined his reasons for wanting an election and replacing the Liberal government.

He spoke about how Canada made him a “promise” when he was born, and how it was kept with his own upbringing, as an adopted child by two schoolteachers. He said that promise was also kept for his wife, Anaida, who came to this country as a refugee.

“The promise was that anyone from anywhere could do anything, that hard work would earn a powerful paycheque,” he said.

Poilievre said it was that promise that got him into politics in the first place and that he was “very proud” to have been part of the Harper government that “not only kept the promise, but expanded it” with maintaining low inflation, cutting the GST and balancing the budget.

“I would like to do the exact same things in the future, which is to expand the opportunity, expand the promise of this country,” he said.

Government House leader Karina Gould accused Poilievre of offering a “revisionist history” of the last time Conservatives were in government and said her recollection of that period was that Canada was “ashamed” of what it was doing on the world stage.

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“I know that the Liberals are ashamed of our country and its past,” shot back Poilievre. “That’s why they changed the passport to take out Vimy Ridge, to take out Terry Fox, to take out other historical triumphs of Canadians.

“Our prime minister was respected in the world,” he said of Harper. “He wasn’t dancing around and being laughed out of India or seen … in some fancy hotel lobby playing the piano the night before the Queen’s funeral, he was proud of this country.”

Bloc House leader Alain Therrien said that his party was in no rush to trigger an election before the next one, scheduled for October 2025.

“There will be plenty of confidence votes before Christmas,” he said. “We’re in a situation where we’ll have other chances … We’ll leave (Liberals) a chance to prove that they deserve our trust, that they deserve Quebecers’ trust, temporarily, of course.”

Conservative MP Gérard Deltell laughed off the idea that Liberals deserve another chance after nine years in power.

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The Bloc is still hopeful it will be able to increase the Old Age pension for people over 65, a change that would cost billions of dollars to implement. For now, Liberals have simply said they are having “conversations” with the Bloc about the issue.

“If that does not work, we’ll trigger an election,” said Therrien.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh did not speak directly about the vote of confidence, instead insisting that the next election will be about a “choice” for Canadians.

“After decades of cuts and broken promises, Canadians are going to need a lot of work to restore hope and give people relief, so the next election is about that choice. It will be a choice between the cuts of Conservatives or the hope and relief of New Democrats.”

Conservative MP Todd Doherty said Singh “propped up” the Liberals for years.

“Canadians truly do have a choice to be made: somebody who is Twitter tough and talks tough in social media or somebody who would actually be there for Canadians,” he said.

The Conservatives will have another chance to introduce a motion of non-confidence on Thursday during a second opposition day scheduled in the House. There are seven opposition days this fall, five of which will go to the Conservatives.

National Post
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