Federal finance critic pushes for worker-led recovery during Kamloops visit

Poilievre’s visit comes as the United States says it is standing down its aluminum tariff dispute with Canada. Hours before Canada’s expected announcement of countermeasures, the U.S. stated this morning it will be lifting a 10 per cent levy on aluminum imported from north of the border.

The Opposition critic says the overall trade conflict won’t be solved overnight. “We’re going to try to fix these problems one by one. We can’t reopen NAFTA now. You only get one shot in a generation to renegotiate a trade deal with the world’s most lucrative economy. But what we can do is through a professional campaign of diplomacy, go down to the states and remove these irritants one by one to put our workers first again.”

Coming out of the financial downturn from the COVID-19 pandemic, Poilievre says he thinks there will need to be a higher focus on job creation and security.

“We think the wage subsidy should be simpler, easier, and more generous so that businesses can hire more people and give them paycheques,” Poilievre explains. “We think that the rent subsidy which so far has gone to less than five per cent of businesses, needs to be simplified and streamlined so that businesses like the one we visited yesterday (The Blue Grotto) don’t get evicted and permanently lose all that they’ve invested.”

With a federal deficit of $380 billion, Poilievre says there needs to be more action taken to ensure Canada’s economy can recover.

“The parliamentary budget officer says we have two years before we go broke at this rate. And he’s not a Conservative, he’s a Trudeau appointed public servant. That’s his mathematics,” he said. “So the reality is we need to get people back to work. When people are working, they’re paying into the system rather than drawing out.”

The minority Liberal government would need the support of an opposition party to make it through a confidence vote. And speculation has surfaced around whether the upcoming throne speech would be a catalyst for a fall election.

“We believe the Canadian people should see all of the evidence in the WE scandal before they render their verdict,” says Poilievre. He says Prime Minister Trudeau will push for an election before further information from the WE Charity scandal is revealed. “And that’s why we think that parliament should stay in place, do the job that Canadians elected us to do less than a year ago, and get a worker-led recovery in Canada.”

Robert Hanlon, a professor with Thompson Rivers University’s Department of Philosophy, History and Politics, says if an election were to be called, the Liberals would have some pros and cons to weigh. He says the minority government will have considered trying to gain a majority position.

“On the plus side, the Liberals have a pretty commanding lead in the polls right now. They’ve got a lot of confidence it looks like in the voters. And they’re working with a scenario where the leader of the Opposition is still not really fully known,” he notes. “So they have some room to move if they do want to call it.”

However, Hanlon figures the throne speech will end in a confidence vote win for the Liberals, making it unlikely a snap election will be called.

“I don’t think they will actually call it because again, I think they will win the confidence of the house. The NDP do not want a fall election. They still have financial challenges and it would be, by any measure, looking like they would be losing some more seats.”

At this point in the pandemic, political analysts say the public is not leaning in favour of another federal election, along with the parties themselves.

by Dylana Kneeshaw

Federal finance critic pushes for worker-led recovery during Kamloops visit

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