Poilievre Attacks Liberals on Inflation

Pierre Poilievre has not relented from slamming the new cabinet named by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau amid the resumption of Parliament.

“You’ve got a finance minister who has given us hundreds of billions of dollars of inflationary deficits, with more to come; you’ve got the housing minister that gave us the worst housing bubble in Canadian history, keeping his job; and of course you’ve got a radical Greenpeace activist who believes in much higher energy prices and shutting down industries that employ hundreds of thousands of people in charge of our environment,” Poilievre declared.

“It’s the costliest cabinet ever, which means more inflation, higher costs for fuel, food and housing. And that’s why my number one priority is to fight Liberal inflation and stand up for consumers and workers. Thank you very much.”

Poilievre was not the party’s finance critic when he made this speech. He had been shuffled out of that role last February by Erin O’Toole, seen by many as a demotion ahead of the election.

Last Tuesday, O’Toole renamed Poilievre as finance critic, restoring him to one of the highest-profile jobs in the opposition ranks. Now, Poilievre is making inflation the main issue of the parliamentary session.

“The government has decided to raise people’s taxes, using inflation as a cover,” Poilievre told the National Post in an interview. “The inflation tax is the most regressive tax there is. It balloons the net worth of the billionaire class by increasing the value of the assets they own, while chewing up the purchasing power of working class wage earners. You could not design a more damaging and unjust tax than the inflation tax.”

“I predicted in May of 2020 that we would have high inflation,” he said. “And all of the Liberal politicians and academics said that was simplistic thinking. Well, now they’ve all been proven wrong, and Canadians are paying the price at the grocery store, at the gas station, and when they go to buy houses.”

When asked what the Tories will demand of the Liberals do in order to fight inflation, Poilievre said: “The Liberal government is causing inflation with excessive deficits and high taxes…our goal is to push them to stop doing the things that cause inflation.”