Poilievre: Next Leader of the CPC?
One Conservative's name stands out in particular as a popular choice for next leader of the party.
Pierre Poilievre is receiving a lot of fanfare as of late, with Brian Lilley of the Toronto Sun writing on February 2 that the long-time MP for the Ontario riding of Carleton is the “man to beat”.
"Pierre Poilievre: The consensus is that Pierre Poilievre is the man to beat if he wants it, and Poilievre’s desire to wear the crown is a legitimate question. He had spoken widely with caucus members and political journalists regarding his desire to run for leader in 2020 but cancelled his campaign hours before a scheduled launch," he writes.
Tristin Hopper of the National Post added that the “slick-haired, 42-year-old, Alberta-born MP” is no less than the “people’s favourite”.
It seems like Poilievre has been gearing up for the kill for sometime, attacking Trudeau viciously over economic issues . In particular, inflation has been his specialty.
“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 said of the opposition.
“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."
Poilievre has made inflation one of the major issues 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.”
Will this economic criticism translate into a direct attack on the Liberals as part of a potential platform for his leadership? Only time will tell.
