Hundreds gather for Poilievre speech in Vernon

Poilievre told the crowd he wants to bring down the debt, champion freedoms, make Canada energy independent, and solve the housing affordability crisis.

Earlier on Saturday, over 1,000 people came out to hear Poilievre at the Sunset Ranch Golf Club in Kelowna.

Vernon Matters was able to get in touch with Poilievre to discuss the policies he is running on in his bid for the leadership.

He said he has heard from talks with people in Vernon and the Okanagan that the public is frustrated with the public health measures related to COVID-19, as well as the affordability and housing crisis.

Poilievre said, if elected, he would immediately abolish all federal public health mandates related to COVID-19.

“Air flights, Via Rail, international border crossings, trucker mandates, federal public servants and RCMP mandates are all imposed at a federal level and all of them remain in place,” said Poilievre, who was born in Calgary.

“Conservatives are fighting to end all of those mandates and passports and we’re also speaking out against provincial mandates at the same time.”

He noted that with the United States having border restrictions for unvaccinated individuals, he would pick up the phone and call the White House in an effort to have those border crossing mandates removed.

On the topic of housing and affordability, Poilievre told Vernon Matters that the main cause of housing inflation is too much money chasing too few houses.

He said the Government of Canada has printed money that has flooded the financial and mortgage system after being lent out to wealthy investors who bought houses and bid up prices, while local government gatekeepers have blocked housing construction.

He had a few ideas for creating more housing supply across the country to help drive the costs down.

“A Poilievre government would use infrastructure dollars as an incentive. Big city municipalities, like Vancouver and Toronto, will have their infrastructure increases tied to the number of new houses that come onto the market. So if the Mayor of Vancouver wants more cash, he’s going to have to let the builders build more houses,” said Poilievre.

“That will put greater financial incentive to remove the local government gatekeepers and it blocks supply of housing in Canada.”

He also said he would have municipalities that create mass-transit projects, funded through the federal government, to build high density housing around major transit hubs.

Poilievre, 42, said these measures would mainly apply to big cities, which do tend to have a roll over effect on smaller municipalities as people move away to downsize.

For smaller cities and towns, Poilievre said he would work with local governments to incentivize the construction of more affordable housing by the private sector, though did not state specifically what those policies would look like.

Another housing idea Poilievre floated during the speech Saturday was converting empty commercial spaces into affordable housing, as many people have moved to working from home, leaving some office spaces completely empty.

“The easy way to resolve that is to sell those buildings to the private sector with a covenant requiring that the developer convert them into affordable housing,” explained Poilievre.

“That would generate revenue for the federal government to pay down its deficit and would generate square footage for affordable housing.

“Then I would work with municipalities to encourage zoning changes that will allow private commercial space no longer used because of the remote work phenomenon, to become affordable housing for our young people.”

Similarly, Poilievre said if elected, his government would sell off 15 per cent of federal buildings to be converted into housing units.

“The combined effects of all these policies will be to build millions of new private dwellings that young people can afford.”

He mentioned gatekeepers a few times during his speech Saturday, saying he wants to reduce regulations that create red tape for everything from housing to energy to business.

Pierre Poilievre spoke in front of a massive crowd at the Schebert Centre in Vernon as he campaigns to become leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (photos by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

Speaking with Vernon Matters about energy, Poilievre said he would create a five year time line to stop the import of foreign oil in a bid to make Canada energy efficient, while also diversifying the sector.

“Right now we’re importing 130,000 barrels of overseas oil to Canada every single day. We need to end that, and I have a plan to replace all of the oil we import from overseas with clean, Canadian energy produced off the shore of Newfoundland,” said Poilievre.

“Secondly, I’m going to remove the regulatory gatekeepers so we can get approval for clean energy projects that will help reduce global emissions, that includes natural gas. Every time we build a natural gas liquefaction facility we can send that gas to Asia to shut down coal-fired plants and replace it with much cleaner and much low-emitting natural gas.”

Poilievre told Vernon Matters that he also wants to move towards more nuclear power.

“The single most important thing we can do to reduce the carbon footprint of global electricity grids is to build nuclear plants. We have the single biggest supply of civilian grade uranium in Saskatchewan. Our deposits could generate major earnings for Saskatchewan where they are located and, at the same time, reduce Asian dependence on coal, and by virtue of that, protect our atmosphere.”

He also said he’s in support of establishing intellectual property of Canada-made small modular nuclear reactors to reduce the country’s coal-fired electricity, then export that to the world.

Poilievre told the crowd Saturday that he wants to make Canada the ‘most free country in the world’ as he continues his campaign to win the leadership of the Conservative Party.

Card carrying Conservatives will vote for the leader of the party on September 10, 2022. Other candidates in the running so far are:

Scott Aitchison – Parry Sound-Muskoka
Roman Barber – N/A
Patrick Brown – N/A
Jean Charest – N/A
Leslyn Lewis – Haldimand-Norfolk

by Liam Verster

Hundreds gather for Poilievre speech in Vernon

What Matters