Mr. Poilievre responded to a question during a March 22 Toronto press conference about immigrants escaping socialist and communist countries like China, searching for freedom in Canada but facing censorship here. The situation “is not an accident,” he said.
“Trudeau said he admires China’s basic communist dictatorship,” Mr. Poilievre said. “He said he admires Fidel Castro. He shares the same ideology as those regimes, and he’s trying to impose it through censorship and other top-down radical agendas.”
The Conservative leader said his “common-sense plan is to support freedom. I’m going to repeal censorship. I will close the foreign police stations that are on our soil. And we will protect our domestic population from foreign interference.”
Some observers have remarked that Canada has increasingly adopted far-left ideologies in recent years.
Issues of Concern
The Conservatives have raised concerns about the Liberal government’s response to foreign interference from China. This includes its inaction toward addressing the alleged secret Chinese police stations operating in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Despite the issue being brought to light by human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders in September 2022, no arrests have been made in the 18 months that followed.Months after extensive media coverage and increasing public pressure, Ottawa launched a public inquiry to investigate China’s alleged interference in the country’s 2019 and 2021 general elections. However, the commission was criticized for limiting Opposition parties’ participation and failing to protect witnesses from individuals accused of connections to the Chinese regime.
At least two diaspora groups, representing ethnic and religious minorities persecuted by the Beijing communist authorities, have called for boycotting the public inquiry due to its lack of safety measures, which they say leaves participants vulnerable to potential reprisals.
Mr. Poilievre addressed other social concerns during the March 22 press conference, including the Liberal government’s decriminalization of hard drugs.
“Trudeau wants to decriminalize hard drugs. He’s already done it, partnering with Vancouver to decriminalize crack, heroin, and other hard drugs. Now, he aims to do the same thing in Toronto with [Mayor] Olivia Chow,” he said. “Decriminalizing crack, heroin, and other hard drugs is a complete disaster. Additionally, he’s funding taxpayer-funded opioids, which are falsely labelled as safe injection sites. They’re not safe.”
He said Canadians “don’t need more tent cities, more drug use centres. What we need is to take all that money and put it into treatment and recovery to get people off drugs. I will ban hard drugs and I will enforce those bans. I will also stop the drugs from coming in at our borders and our ports.”
