After a week of political intrigue, Poilievre tries to turn the focus back to Carney's record
After a chaotic week in Ottawa, with a floor-crossing, a resignation and a failed attempt to bring down the government, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre travelled to Toronto to put the focus back on cost-of-living issues.
“We should be the richest country on planet earth and that should be our goal,” said Poilievre, on Friday afternoon, to a business crowd.
Poilievre took aim at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s federal budget and pointed to the Liberals as the reason for Canada’s high cost of living while speaking at an event hosted by the Economic Club of Canada. The address came days after the Carney government revealed its budget plan on Tuesday.
“This week’s budget showed that investment has collapsed in all three fiscal quarters for which he has been prime minister,” said Poilievre, adding that there’s a deficit of $78 billion — “$16 billion higher than Carney promised during the election campaign.”
The budget was largely overshadowed by the political drama that came in its wake on Tuesday. Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont confirmed that he had resigned from the Conservative caucus hours after the budget was tabled, joining the governing Liberals. Then, while MPs voted on Thursday evening against a Conservative sub-amendment that called on the House of Commons to reject the budget, which would have brought down the government if passed, news broke that Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux plans to resign as a member of Parliament. Jeneroux was also considering switching ranks to the Liberals and even met with Carney recently, multiple sources told National Post .
Poilievre used his speech to turn the focus back to the Liberal government’s record and away from the political intrigue.
Canada has “literally everything it takes to have the highest quality of living,” said Poilievre. He noted the country’s resources, including uranium, potash, a long oceanic coastline, fresh water and having the shortest shipping distance from the Americas to both Europe and Asia.
“We have the most resources in the world, but we can’t get them to markets, and the biggest market to which we get them has near monopoly on our most precious, and just in terms of dollar value, our biggest exports, oil and gas,” he said.
The obstacle? Our own government, he said, which is the reason why “we don’t have pipelines and more LNG plants on our coasts.”
“Government makes it next to impossible to get anything built,” he said.
“This will be the most costly five years, if it is allowed to happen, in any of Canada’s history,” he said. “And make no mistake. This is not due to the falling revenue from the trade war. It is due to increased government spending.”
He said the money the government plans to spend comes out of the pockets of Canadians, as home and food prices increase.
LIVE: Keynote Speech at the Economic Club of Canada https://t.co/auyORVtAt4
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) November 7, 2025
To bring down the deficit, Poilievre said he would cut bureaucracy and bring in a dollar for dollar law (for every dollar of new spending, there must be an equal dollar of savings.) He said he’d also cut hidden food taxes, like the food labelling tax and fuel standard tax , and eliminate the home building tax and capital gains tax on any reinvestments in Canada.
“(The Carney Liberals) believe in adding new obstacles for all of you and then asking you to go to them and ask for a handout to help you get over those same obstacles,” said Poilievre. “It’s like Ronald Reagan said, ‘If a liberal sees something that moves, they tax it. If it keeps moving, they regulate it. And when it stops moving, they subsidize it.'”
Poilievre also noted Carney’s mishandling of President Donald Trump, who recently terminated negotiations between Canada and the U.S. after the Ontario government used the voice of late former president Reagan in an anti-tariff advertisement .
“It was wrong for Mr. Carney to claim that he would handle the president, and I think we can all agree that it’s been very much the reverse since he took office,” he said, in conversation with the Stronach Group’s Michael Liebrock after his address.
Poilievre said, if he were to broker a deal between the neighbouring countries, he would offer them a greater military “that unburdens Americans of our defence and ensures their northern flank” is secure from threats if they agreed to trade with Canada more.
National Post, with files from Stephanie Taylor
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