By Surbhi Gogia
Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the federal Conservative Party in Canada, has emerged as the proponent of a common sense approach towards every pressing issue that Canada is struggling with, these days like housing, inflation, taxes or public safety concerns.
His ability to distill intricate issues into straightforward and simplest of solutions was prominent during his interaction with representatives of ethnic media in Surrey this week. Poilievre put aside difficult terminology or jargon to offer answers that resonate with a common person.
Regardless of the complexity of questions like diplomatic tensions with India or the straightforward question of constructing a community center for the Filipino community in BC, the Conservative leader’s answers were driven by two overarching solutions ie putting Canada first on the diplomatic front and on domestic front putting more money in pockets of people so they can afford things they want.
When asked about diplomatic relations, especially with India, Poilievre said all his foreign policy would reflect a commitment to prioritize Canadian interests. “All of my foreign policy will be driven by one thing ie what’s good for Canada. We are going to start putting our own country first for a change. This idea that we have had for eight years under Trudeau to cower to foreign governments, and multinational bureaucracies, to get seats to different UN commissions and let US walk all over us — would be over. We will stand for Canada.”
He said when it comes to India, he sees it as a big powerful democracy, emphasizing the importance of doing business with the second biggest populous nation on Earth while keeping Canada’s welfare at the forefront. “I want more trade and jobs for our people.”
His focus on bilateral relations with India will be in terms of business. “My priorities with India will include selling our natural gas so that we can shut down coal fire plants and replace them with clean Canadian gas that is liquefied here in British Columbia. And we want to get a direct flight from Vancouver to Amritsar so that we can shorten travel time for the largest diaspora and Punjabi community. Singapore Malaysia, Italy, UK all have direct flights to Amritsar so why not Canada? Trudeau signed an open skies agreement with no direct flights to Amritsar. He took our Punjabi community for granted and didn’t care inconvenience it caused particularly seniors and business owners who visit Punjab. I want to fix that.”
With respect to increasing foreign interference, he said Canada needs to protect its citizens from foreign influence by any government and Canada needs a public registry for agents of “foreign authoritarian regimes who influence or manipulate” Canadian politics.
Apart from foreign issues, the leader criticized the current government’s handling of economic issues too. He blamed the rising cost of living, increased housing prices, and higher taxes on Justin Trudeau’s eight-year tenure. “Our country has never been in worse shape than it is after eight years of Trudeau. Two million people forced to a food bank every single month in Canada.”
Poilievre’s solution involves a ‘common sense’ conservative approach, advocating for lower prices through the elimination of the carbon tax on gas, heat, and groceries. “We’re going to bring home lower prices by axing the carbon tax on gas, heat, and groceries by capping, spending, and cutting waste to balance the budget and bring down inflation and interest rates.”
In the realm of immigration, Poilievre criticized Trudeau for failing to help immigrants get licensed in their professions. “We’ll bring on powerful paychecks of lower income taxes that reward hard work by bringing in a blue -sealed national testing standard to allow our brilliant immigrant doctors and nurses to take a test prove they’re qualified and get to work in their field. We have, for example, 32 ,000 immigrant nurses that can’t work. Many of them are Filipino.”
To address the housing crisis, Poilievre proposed incentivizing local bureaucracies to speed up the permitting process for home building. “We’ll create financial incentives for the local bureaucracies to speed up lower the cost of building permits, free up land, so we can build.”
On crime prevention, Poilievre advocated for stricter measures, including keeping repeat violent offenders in prison and banning hard drugs. “We will also ban hard drugs, stop giving out opioids, and instead provide recovery and treatment services so we can bring our loved ones home drug free.”
In essence, Pierre Poilievre’s ‘common sense’ approach involved breaking down complicated issues and finding simple answers for all the things the Trudeau government is finding difficult right now ie inflation, housing and cost of living. However, it will not be uncommon to point that the true test of his common sense agenda will only be possible if he secures victory in the upcoming elections!
