(Ottawa) As the House of Commons begins its summer break on Wednesday, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre, is heading to Montreal where, after a speech to activists in the evening, he will begin a tour with his wife and his two children who will take him to the four corners of Quebec.
“It’s like a family vacation at the same time,” described his political lieutenant for Quebec, Pierre Paul-Hus, in an interview with The Canadian Press shortly before the last question period of the session.
Mr. Poilievre will travel aboard a recreational vehicle which will display a photo of him and his family, his party’s colors and logo as well as his message of “common sense” in French and English.
The objective of a tour of such magnitude is to send a “strong signal” that the Conservatives have Quebec “at heart” and that they have “a lot of ambition” in this province, insisted Mr. Paul-Hus.
“The image that people currently have of Pierre Poilievre is the guy who fights in the House of Commons. It’s the image that is on TV, that people see, but the man, the human who holds hands, who chats with you. Every time someone meets him and talks to him, they say, ‘wow, that’s not how I saw him,'” he explained.
According to the party, a thousand people are expected at the rally on Wednesday evening during which it will be announced that the Conservative candidate in the riding of Mount Royal will be Montreal lawyer Neil Oberman, the one who recently filed the request for an injunction. against the pro-Palestinian encampment at McGill University.
Mr. Poilievre will then visit several ridings that he believes he can win in the next general election.
According to the schedule provided by the political party, he will take the road on Thursday towards Richmond-Arthabaska where he will visit three companies, including the multinational Cascades. He will then go to Trois-Rivières on Thursday, notably to attend horse races and a baseball game.
On Saturday, the Conservative leader will drive to Rivière-du-Loup, then Charlevoix. Whale watching and a rodeo are on the program. The next day, in Saguenay, he will go to a livestock farm, attend the Bagotville International Air Show and have a picnic in a park. Finally, on Monday, he will celebrate Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec.
Poll after poll shows the Conservatives have a major lead over any other political party. Across the country, that gap is about 20 points with their closest rival, the Liberal Party of Canada. However, Quebec is the only province which was not seduced by Mr. Poilievre’s offer and where the Bloc Québécois maintains its lead.
And Mr. Poilievre spares no effort in attacking the Bloc, whom he continues to falsely claim form a “coalition” with the Liberals, just as he claims in English, just as falsely, that Justin Trudeau’s party forms a coalition with Jagmeet Singh’s New Democratic Party.
“No, I have never felt so under attack,” admitted Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet during his end-of-session press conference.
He then launched a salvo against Pierre Poilievre and his conservatives whom he accused of having “no morality, no ethics, no reservations, anything goes, the truth has no rights.”
“I invited him ten times to debate with me in the language of his choice, in the place of his choice. He never responded. He pushes himself and he is afraid. I wonder what his voters think of a big-armed Pierre Poilievre who is afraid to debate. »
Among the Liberals, the co-president of the campaign, Quebec minister Soraya Martinez-Ferrada, says she is not discouraged by the lack of movement in voting intentions.
“On election day, I was 14 points behind and won my county. There are polls, there is an election, there is a campaign and we are not in a campaign,” she said upon her arrival at the Liberal caucus meeting.
For Justin Trudeau’s lieutenant for Quebec, Pablo Rodriguez, there is nothing surprising that a party in power for more than eight years is falling behind.
“That’s part of the challenge. It’s normal. We are in the third term, he told journalists. I had black hair when I started. […] My white hair, it will not go back and I will not dye it. »
His colleague Jean-Yves Duclos affirmed that the Liberal strategy to convince around the barbecue consists of repeating that they are working to tackle the rise in the cost of living “unlike Pierre Poilievre”.
“His strategy is to reduce taxes for the richest and make life more difficult for everyone else,” he sent. We have an opposite strategy. »
At the New Democratic Party, deputy leader Alexandre Boulerice argued that his party intends to insist this summer on the gains obtained within the framework of the agreement which allows the Liberals to remain in power with their support: the anti-scab law, the dental care program and drug insurance.
“This will demonstrate that we are obtaining results for citizens, for Canadians. And I believe that we will see the needle (of voting intentions) move a little […] in our favor,” he said.
Elected officials will return to work in the Commons on Monday, September 16.
