Liberals and NDP waste no time in attacking Poilievre at the opening of fall session

The NDP put out an attack ad on social media timed to get their message across just before Poilievre took the floor of the House of Commons

Author of the article:

Catherine Lévesque
Publishing date:

Sep 20, 2022 • 

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre rises during question period 

in the House of Commons on Sept. 20, 2022.

PHOTO BY ADRIAN WYLD/THE CANADIAN PRESS

The Liberals and the New Democratic Party (NDP) wasted no time in attacking new Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre on the first day of the fall session in Parliament.

In a rare move, the NDP put out an attack ad on social media on Tuesday responding to Poilievre’s claims that he is fighting for the people and instead attempting to portray the new leader of the official opposition as being cozy with the elites and “big business.”

“He’s not in it for you,” reads the script in the 29-second long video two times.

Melanie Richer, director of communications for the NDP, told the National Post that the goal for the party was to get their message across just before Poilievre took the floor of the House of Commons as leader of the Conservatives to talk about inflation and the cost of living.

“I think that Pierre Poilievre has been trying to reframe himself as somebody who’s in it for people. And we’ve seen clearly that that’s not true,” said Richer.

“He’s never going to go after corporate greed and he’s never going to make your salaries better. So he says a lot of things, makes a lot of noise, but he’s not actually doing anything concretely to make things better for people,” she added.

NDP deputy leader Alexandre Boulerice said that Poilievre talks a lot about the price of food going up, rightly so, but that he would never dare to speak up against big corporations in the food industry which are making “record profits” right now on the backs of consumers.

“Pierre Poilievre will never have the courage to stand up against those grocery store giants,” said Boulerice.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, so his first confrontation in question period against Poilievre will not happen before Thursday.

But that didn’t stop his ministers, who were up against Poilievre for the first time since he became leader. They spent the better part of their first question period touting “real solutions” to the cost of living crisis but the were in turn ridiculed by Poilievre.

Minister of Families, Karina Gould, spoke about the agreements on child care made with all provinces and territories which would save families “thousands of dollars that are going to help them with the high cost of living.”

“Those are real solutions,” she said.

Poilievre shot back right away. “Canadians can’t even afford to have a family in the first place,” he said. “They can’t get out of their parents’ basements or the 400 square foot apartments after housing prices have literally doubled in this country under this prime minister.”

Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen also chimed in that the Liberals had proposed “real solutions” — like the housing accelerator or the first-time homebuyer tax credit. But Poilievre countered that Canada had the “second worst housing bubble of any country on planet Earth.”

Randy Boissonnault, Associate Minister of Finance, said that Canadians would see “two competing visions” during the fall session between the Liberals and the Conservatives.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh pointed fingers to both parties during question period for the cost of living crisis, saying Liberals kept saying it was worse in other countries.

“And then we’ve got a leader of the opposition who thinks you can magically opt out of inflation by buying cryptocurrency which ended up tanking and hurting people,” he said.

Afterward, Poilievre’s spokesperson did not immediately comment on the attacks toward the new leader.

But a written statement put out by the Conservatives earlier in the day offered three solutions to stop inflation: cap government spending with a Pay-As-You-Go law, axe the carbon tax and “remove red tape and gatekeepers” to help businesses and workers.