Butting heads, trading barbs
CHAREST, POILIEVRE, LEWIS GET FEISTY ON CONVOY, ABORTION AT DEBATE
What was supposed to be a friendly debate between contenders for the leadership of the federal Conservatives ended up in fiery exchanges over the trucker convoy and abortion.
Pierre Poilievre, Leslyn Lewis, Jean Charest, Scott Aitchison and Roman Baber were reunited on the same Ottawa stage Thursday as part of the event hosted by the Canada Strong and Free Network, an organization started by the founder of the Reform Party, Preston Manning.
Candidates were asked by moderators Candice Malcolm and Jamil Jivani to present their vision to unite the Conservative party and the country, but the conversation quickly deviated to other subjects.
Lewis confronted Poilievre about what she considered to be insufficient support for the truckers who protested pandemic restrictions for three weeks this winter.
Responding to a question on whether the Conservatives stood up for freedom enough during the pandemic, Poilievre first began by saying, “Well I did stand up for freedom during the pandemic from the very beginning... I was among one of the loudest voices.”
He was cut off by Lewis, who declared he was “not one of the loudest voices.” “You did not even go to the trucker protests. You actually went and you took a picture in your neighbourhood, at a local stop. You did not speak up for the truckers,” she said.
Charest was the first to get booed when he accused Poilievre of “supporting the illegal blockades” in Ottawa earlier this year.
Charest has said in previous interviews that the rule of law “is not a buffet” that Canadian parliamentarians can pick and choose from, targeting specifically Poilievre.
Aitchison and Baber tried to intervene several times to restore peace.
“I actually like all these people,” said Aitchison, pointing to his colleagues. “They're good folks. And here we are calling each other names.”
That did not stop Poilievre and Charest from going after each other, and Lewis from going after Poilievre.
Lewis confronted Poilievre on access to abortion in Canada. He has refused to elaborate on his personal position when asked, saying only that a Poilievre government would not “introduce or pass any laws restricting abortion.”
“Pierre Poilievre has run from some of the media the last few days because he doesn't want to be clear whether he's pro-life or prochoice,” said Lewis.
“As a leader, he is going to have to declare that. He cannot just be a minister of finance if he wants to be a prime minister. He is going to have to deal with social conservative issues, which he has been running from for this entire campaign,” she added.
Throughout the evening, Poilievre consistently accused Charest of being a “Liberal,” a label he's tried to affix to the former Quebec premier since the beginning of the race.
The attacks got under Charest's skin enough that he eventually took some of his debate time to respond directly to Poilievre.
“Can I take a moment to lay to bed this accusation of being a Liberal?” Charest began. “I went to lead a coalition in Quebec as a federalist when there was no Conservative Party of Quebec.”
To that, Poilievre responded, “It's your record that was Liberal, Jean. You governed like a Liberal.”
The friction between Poilievre and Charest got heated in the middle of the debate just seconds after Baber called on all candidates to avoid attacking each other “scorchedearth.”
Poilievre turned to Charest and asked him to tell the crowd how much he was paid by Huawei when he advised the Chinese telecom giant on the Meng Wanzhou case and on 5G networks.
Charest avoided the question during his response, but struggled to finish a sentence as Poilievre pestered him over one dozen times with “how much?” repeatedly.
“This is not a student council,” Charest eventually responded.
Speaking to journalists after the event, he still refused to answer the question, invoking professional secrecy when he was a lawyer in the private sector. “Would you unveil the names of your sources?” he asked a reporter who pressed him.
The sixth leadership contender, Brampton, Ont., Mayor Patrick Brown, was absent from Thursday's debate.
“Mayor Patrick Brown chose not to participate in today's debate. We can only speculate as to why, we don't know,” said moderator Jivani. “What we do know for certain is that some Canadians are concerned that Mayor Brown is sowing division in our country.”
All leadership hopefuls will be taking part in two official debates organized by the Conservative Party of Canada. The English debate will be held in Edmonton on May 11. The French debate will take place in Laval, Que., on May 25.
The new leader will be announced on Sept. 10.