OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre gave a lengthy interview to psychologist and media personality Jordan Peterson, touching on his vision for Canada and how he plans to implement it.
Here’s what we learned from the interview, which was recorded on Dec. 21 and released Friday:
Poilievre has no qualms with a federal election taking place during a possible Liberal leadership race. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing increasing calls, including within his own caucus, to step down.
“The Canadian people are not obliged — 41 million people are not obliged to wait around while this party sorts out its s–t. Like, these guys could have got rid of Trudeau a year and a half ago.”
Poilievre chided Canada’s energy sector for seeming to go along with Liberal policies such as on the environment.
“The Big Five oil companies in Canada have idiot lobbyists. They have brilliant workers, incredible workers, but idiot lobbyists. And they’ve been trying to suck up for the last 10 years and did nothing to support the right policies in the prior years. So that’s going to have to change.”
Poilievre says Trudeau has governed with “an extremely radical ideology” that is “basically authoritarian socialism,” and says the NDP would have done exactly the same if they were in power.
He also says “it is a classic for socialists” to try to disown what they’ve done and change their names.
“First they were communists, and then they became socialist, and then they became social democrats, and then they became — they stole the word liberal, and then they ruined that word. They changed their name to progressives, and then they changed their name to woke. And now they claim they don’t want to be called woke anymore,” he said.
Poilievre added that his appeal to young voters is that “they’ve learned that (government) help is the sunny side of control.”
Poilievre argued the lack of homes in Canada is an “entirely political” problem because the country has such a large land mass.
“It should be dirt cheap, because we have the most dirt. We just need to get the government out of the way,” he said.
“There is no physical, geographic reason why Canada should struggle to supply people with great opportunities of home ownership and family formation.”
Poilievre says he won’t try to shift his policies to the centre or left, saying it would only lead to bad results and is “the mistake that conservative parties around the world have made countless times.”
“Does the temptation exist to try and take on the political policies of the socialists in the short term? Sure, but it’s one that I will fiercely resist, because I know that by the fourth year of my mandate, people would be enraged, because their lives would be even worse.”
He also said he would focus on problems facing Canadian families instead of on tackling issues on the global scale.
“People are sick and tired of grandiosity,” he said, rejecting “this horrendous, utopian wokeism” that serves “egotistical personalities on top” instead of “common people.”
No hyphens, please
“We’re not interested in the world’s ethnocultural conflicts,” Poilievre said, praising multiculturalism but saying people who come to Canada need to leave their baggage back in their home countries.
“Most people come here to get away from those things. So by getting back to a common sense of values and identity, and reminding people that they are — when they get here, they are Canadian first. Canada first. Leave the hyphens; we don’t need to be a hyphenated society.”
He urged Canadians to “put aside race, this obsession with race that wokeism has reinserted.”
Poilievre also echoed comments he previously made when asked about Pride events, saying he wants people to be “judged based on their individual character and humanity, rather than by their group identity.”
His plan to grow the economy
“We’re going to cut bureaucracy, cut the consultants, cut foreign aid, cut back on corporate welfare to large corporations. We’re going to use the savings to bring down the deficit and taxes and unleash the free-enterprise system,” Poilievre pledged.
He plans to slash the Liberals’ reform of regulation for megaprojects “to cause a massive resource boom in our country” and generate enough electricity to power data centres.
“We’re going to bring back a monetary discipline to bring down inflation (and) stop the money printing,” he said, arguing that because Parliament does not vote on whether to print money, “the inflation is adopted secretly.”
The Bank of Canada has pushed back on claims that it is printing cash to finance the federal government. It said purchasing bonds has lowered interest rates so people could weather the COVID-19 pandemic, and this did not involve printing cash.
He lists his stars
When asked to list “people who will be key” in a Poilievre government, he noted four MPs from his front bench:
Former leader and House Speaker Andrew Scheer, who can navigate “procedural manoeuvres” in Parliament.
Infrastructure critic Leslyn Lewis, whom he praised for her work in that file. She ran for party leadership against Poilievre, and has backed a petition calling on Canada to pull out of the United Nations.
“Newcomers like Jamil Jivani,” a former radio host who has a direct relationship with U.S. vice-president-elect JD Vance.
Deputy leader Melissa Landsman, who is “extremely well liked in Toronto (and) very well known across the country.”
Some sort of crackdown
Poilievre pledged “the biggest crackdown on crime in Canadian history, a massive crackdown” but was sparse on details when Peterson asked what that means, other than saying that “habitual offenders will not get out of jail anymore.”
He says Peterson is a free-speech champion
Peterson was directed by the College of Psychologists of Ontario to undergo a remedial coaching program after social-media conduct that the college deemed to be degrading, demeaning and posing a risk to the public.
Peterson has lost three attempts to appeal the 2022 ruling, saying his freedom of speech has been impeded. His tweets included referring to a nonbinary city councillor as an “appalling self-righteous moralizing thing” and saying that “no amount of authoritarian tolerance” could make him deem one plus-size model to be beautiful.
Poilievre thanked Peterson for his “immense courage” in standing by his convictions.
“You’ve had a spine of steel, and there are countless other people who will have the freedom to express themselves because you paid the price for them.”
Stronger than yesterday
When asked how he’d changed since becoming Conservative leader in fall 2022, Poilievre said he had learned to “take a punch” while taking on “vested interests” across Canada.
“I would say I’m tougher,” he said. “I withstood those punches and as a result, I feel stronger now.”
Little pushback on policy
The Liberals and NDP reacted to the interview by denouncing that Peterson’s podcast episode had support from an Indiana-based Christian anti-abortion group that seeks to protect “pre-born” babies.
The Friday interview includes an ad from the group PreBorn, seeking donations. It includes the story of a woman who tried to order an abortion pill but it never arrived “by God’s design” and the group ultimately convinced her to give birth.
“The Conservatives and Jordan Peterson are coming for women’s rights,” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in a post on X that focused on the advertisement but said nothing about the interview itself.
The Liberal party similarly posted about Poilievre going on “a podcast sponsored by an anti-abortion group.”
The interview itself, abortion did not come up.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 3, 2025.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
