Poilievre visits convoy camp, claims Trudeau is lying about 'everything'

The Conservative leader is facing questions after stop‐ ping to cheer on an anticarbon tax convoy camp near the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where he bluntly ac‐ cused the prime minister of lying about "everything."

In response, Prime Minis‐ ter Justin Trudeau accused Pierre Poilievre of welcoming "the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists."

In videos posted to social media, the Opposition leader is seen thanking and encour‐ aging protesters who have camped out in what some participants have described as a convoy-style "hold the line protest" since the carbon tax increase on April 1 - nod to the 2022 convoy protest in downtown Ottawa.

In video filmed by the pro‐ testers, who have been living at the site for three weeks, Poilievre tells the group to "keep it up" and calls their protest "a good, old-fash‐ ioned Canadian tax revolt."

"Everyone hates the tax because everyone's been screwed over," Poilievre is heard saying in the video, which shows protesters with "Axe the tax" and "F--k Trudeau " signs and flags. A car with 'Make Canada Great Again' scrawled on the rear window is seen parked at the site.

"People believed his lies. Everything he said was bull‐ shit, from top to bottom."

In another video from his visit, Poilievre, who has been beating Trudeau's Liberals in the polls since last summer, is seen leaving a RV with a drawing of the black and white Diagolon flag on the door.

According to RCMP docu‐ ments tabled at the Emer‐ gencies Act inquiry last year, the national police force be‐ lieves Diagolon is a militialike network whose support‐ ers subscribe to an "accelera‐ tionist" ideology - the idea that a civil war or the col‐ lapse of western governmen‐ ts is inevitable and ought to

abe sped up. The group's founder dis‐ putes that characterization and argues it's a fictitious meme.

In that video, a man asks Poilievre for a photo and sug‐ gests they pose in front of the infamous expletive flag about Trudeau. Poilievre can be heard suggesting they pose somewhere else.

Trudeau says Poilievre will do 'anything to win'

Poilievre's visit with the protesters has caused a stir among his political opponen‐ ts.

"Every politician has to make choices about what kind of leader they want to be," Trudeau said when asked about Poilievre's com‐ ments during a media avail‐ ability Wednesday.

"Are they the kind of leader that is going to exacer‐ bate divisions, fears and po‐ larization in our country, make personal attacks and welcome the support of con‐ spiracy theorists and extrem‐ ists? Because that's exactly what Pierre Poilievre contin‐ ues to do, not just when you see him engaging with mem‐ bers of Diagolon but also when he refuses to condemn and reject the endorsement of Alex Jones."

Jones, a notorious broad‐ caster who has been ordered to pay more than a billion dollars in damages to the families of the Sandy Hook victims after claiming the school shooting was a hoax, has called Poilievre the "real deal" and recently reiterated his support. In 2012, an armed man killed 26 people at the Sandy Hook Elemen‐ tary School shooting in Con‐ necticut, most of them chil‐ dren between the ages of six and seven.

WATCH | Trudeau says Poilievre is welcoming 'sup‐ port of conspiracy theorists and extremists'

"This is the kind of man who's saying Pierre Poilievre has the right ideas to bring the country towards the right," said Trudeau during a stop in the Toronto area, where he was touting his re‐ cent budget. Recent polling suggests last week's budget release hasn't done much to sway voters.

"So the fact that Pierre Poilievre hasn't stood up to condemn that endorsement, the fact that he continues to encourage the kind of divi‐ sive approaches to Canada that I don't think Canadians want to see, really shows that he will do anything to win."

Poilievre's team says they don't follow Alex Jones

In a statement issued to CBC News, Poilievre's spokesper‐ son Sebastian Skamski said "we do not follow" Jones "or listen to what he has to say."

"Unlike Justin Trudeau, we're not paying attention to what some American is say‐ ing," said the statement.

Skamski did not respond to CBC's question about whether Poilievre was aware of the Diagolon symbol.

Poilievre denounced the group as "dirtbags" after their founder threatened to sexually assault his wife dur‐ ing an online stream last year.

Skamski said Poilievre no‐ ticed an anti-carbon tax protest while driving be‐ tween stops in Atlantic Cana‐ da.

"As a vocal opponent of Justin Trudeau's punishing carbon tax which has driven up the cost of groceries, gas, and heating, he made a brief, impromptu stop," he said.

"If Justin Trudeau is con‐ cerned about extremism, he should look at parades on Canadian streets openly cele‐ brating Hamas' slaughter of Jews on Oct. 7."

The comment appears to cite a recent pro-Palestinian rally on Parliament Hill. Ot‐ tawa police say they're inves‐ tigating allegations of hate speech after widely shared video showed a man on a megaphone praising Hamas' attack on Israeli civilians that killed more than 1,200, ac‐ cording to Israeli figures. More than 34,000 Palestini‐ ans in Gaza have been killed in Israel's military campaign since then, health officials in the territory say.

Both Trudeau and Poilievre have condemned the protesters' rhetoric.

WATCH | Poilievre 'pur‐ posefully trying to divide Canadians,' Singh says

In a separate news confer‐ ence, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh accused Poilievre of deliberately dividing Canadi‐ ans.

"A leader shouldn't be someone that is irresponsi‐ ble with language, that stokes division, that stokes hatred," he said.

"He is someone that's been endorsed by the likes of

Alex Jones and Tucker Carl‐ son. This is a divisive person who is giving life to and giv‐ ing breath to folks to contin‐ ue his irresponsible ap‐ proach, to his divisive ap‐ proach."

Poilievre's visit 'risky,' says pollster

David Coletto, founder and CEO of polling firm Abacus Data, said part of Poilievre's strategy in visiting the protest encampment might have been to motivate mem‐ bers of his base who are drawn by Maxime Bernier's populist People's Party of Canada - which took four per cent of the vote in the last election.

"But I think it's a real risky play because I think this is a protest that seemingly is masquerading as a policy cri‐ tique but really is extrem‐ ism," he said.

"And that's always the Achilles heel for Conserva‐ tives in Canada."

Coletto said Poilievre is riding high in the polls thanks to people who are upset with the prime minister and want change. He added that coali‐ tion "is quite fragile."

"This might be a signal that the Conservatives might be getting over-confident that pollsters like me telling them repeatedly that they've got a 20 point lead nationally means he can go and do things that might otherwise, if it became widespread, turn some of his new supporters off," he said.

"I think he's risking frac‐ turing that new coalition."

Trudeau's comments on Wednesday follow new Liber‐ al attack ads linking Poilievre to Jones.

Coletto said so far there's no evidence they're making Canadians less confident in the Conservative leader.

"But that doesn't mean over time, does the accumu‐ lation of all of these evidence points lead to someone maybe saying, 'I'm uncom‐ fortable with him being the prime minister of Canada?" he said.

"So I think it all depends on how often this might happen and, more impor‐ tantly, how many people are aware of it."