Pierre Poilievre called Justin Trudeau a ‘wacko PM’
Photo : AP
Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre was booted from the House of Commons on Tuesday after he called Justin Trudeau a ‘wacko prime minister’. Speaker of the House Greg Fergus explained his decision saying the word used was ‘not considered parliamentary’.
Poilievre had earlier blamed Trudeau for allowing British Columbia to decriminalize small amounts of hard drugs, a step the state is now seeking to rolling back. The 44-year-old said it was a ‘wacko policy’ backed by ‘this wacko prime minister’. Fergus immediately asked him to withdraw the ‘unparliamentary language’.
Pierre Poilievre refused. He said he would replace ‘wacko’ with ‘extremist’ or ‘radical’. He was then ejected from the House.
“There are a couple of things that are going on here today that are not acceptable,” the speaker said. Soon after the ejection, MPs in the House yelled at one another and called each other names.
Following Poilievre’s removal, the Conservative caucus left the Commons chamber en masse. Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, fielded more questions from Bloc and NDP leaders. He too left the chamber.
Poilievre and Trudeau trolled each other on social media. “The Liberal speaker censored me for describing Trudeau’s hard drug policy as wacko,” the former posted. “Six people dying from overdoses every day in B.C. is wacko. Nurses worried about breastfeeding after breathing in toxic drug fumes is wacko. This is a wacko policy from a wacko PM that’s destroying lives.”
Trudeau meanwhile called the opposition leader ‘spineless’.