Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, visited Thordon Bearings in Burlington yesterday (Aug. 6) to share his message of removing the carbon tax, and sharing political promises with local workers.
Thordon Bearings, a family-owned manufacturing business that produces bearings and seals for boats and clean energy systems, welcomed Poilievre with a tour of the facility and a demonstration of the durability of the materials used by the company.
Poilievre, who had been visiting facilities across the GTA this week, ended the tour with a speech, touching on a variety of political topics.
“Anybody who works hard can achieve anything in this country, that was the Canadian promise,” Poilievre said. “But after nine years of Trudeau and the NDP Liberals, that promise is broken. Everything costs more. Work doesn't pay. You make it, Trudeau takes it. Housing costs have doubled. Crime, chaos, drugs, and disorder are common in our streets, and many people are giving up on Canada altogether. But the good news is, life was not like this before Trudeau and won't be like this after he's gone.”
Poilievre said that removing the carbon tax would lower gas and grocery bills as well as making Canadian businesses more competitive.
Poilievre focused on matters of national security, from pulling Canadian soldiers out of current conflicts and operations, to a harsher approach to drug use.
“I will require local governments to speed up permits, free up land, cut development taxes and build 15 percent more housing per year as a condition of getting their federal funds,” he said. “We will sell off 6,000 federal buildings and thousands of acres of federal land to build, build, build. We want those homes to be in safe neighbourhoods, so we will stop the crime. We'll bring in jail and not bail for repeat violent offenders, treatment not decriminalized drugs to bring our loved ones home drug free, and we'll secure the borders by scanning the shipping containers and hiring more boots on the ground at the ports and the border entries so that we can trap stopped criminals from bringing drugs and guns in and taking stolen cars out.”
The Conservative Party leader also brought up the idea of a ‘blue seal’ system that would work similarly to how red seals work for trades, and hopes that it will allow immigrant doctors, nurses, engineers and architects to continue their work in Canada without having to study at Canadian schools.
Poilievre also took time in his speech to speak about the federal gun ban on handguns and the proposed government buybacks of firearms as well as restricting foreign aid.
“Trudeau wants to protect turkeys from hunters, I want to protect Canadians from criminals,” he said. “You decide what makes the most sense. What makes sense to me is that we cut off foreign aid to dictators, terrorists, and multinational bureaucracies, and put that money into rebuilding our military, the investments in which will help businesses like yours, who supply, for our armed forces. And let's bring home that production, bring home our military and also bring home our freedom.”
The next federal election is currently set to take place on Oct. 20, 2025, with early polls showing a distinct rise in popularity for the Conservative Party of Canada since 2022.