Canada’s Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who is likely to win the upcoming national elections, was on Tuesday ejected from the House of Commons after calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “wacko”.
This is further evidence of the deep-seated, sometimes deeply personal animosity between the two leaders, providing a glimpse into the potentially tumultuous nature of the upcoming election campaign.
Following a heated exchange during the daily question period, which allows opposition parties the opportunity to scrutinise the government, Poilievre was instructed to leave by the speaker of Canada’s Parliament.
At first, Justin Trudeau accused Pierre Poilievre of visiting a protest camp where “white nationalist groups” were present, adding that it showed “spineless” leadership. Speaker Greg Fergus intervened, requesting Trudeau to rephrase his statement to ensure compliance with the chamber’s rules on decorum.
Responding to this, Poilievre called Trudeau’s politicies “extremist”. He criticised Trudeau for refusing to address drug overdoses.
“When will we put an end to this wacko policy by this wacko prime minister?” Poilievre said in the Parliament’s lower chamber.
Fergus, a Liberal, deemed Poilievre’s comment as unparliamentary and unacceptable, urging him to retract it four times. Poilievre declined and said he would rather substitute the term with “extremist” or “radical”. Fergus told Poilievre that he was ignoring the speaker’s authority.
He said, “I order to you to withdraw from the House … for the remainder of this day’s sitting.”
Reiterating the attack, Poilievre said in a post on X, “Today the Liberal speaker censored me for describing Trudeau’s hard drug policy as wacko. 6 people dying from overdoses every day in BC is wacko. Kids playing next to used syringes 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.”
Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon said after the incident, “What you witnessed in the House of Commons moments ago is a disgrace. It’s disrespect for our institutions, a disrespect for the speaker.”
Trudeau’s power-sharing deal with the left-wing New Democratic Party suggests that the next election is unlikely to occur until late October 2025. Polls suggest that the Conservatives would secure a significant majority over the center-left Liberals, who have held power since November 2015.
