WEYBURN – Leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre for the federal Conservative party spoke at a fundraising breakfast in Weyburn on Wednesday, during a quick stop before he moved on to Estevan and Regina in his swing through Saskatchewan.
“The results will be announced on Sept. 10, so we’re getting close to the finish line. It’s going very well. People are ready to take back full control of their lives and make Canada the freest nation in the world,” he said in an interview after the fundraiser.
“That’s what I’m going to do, and that’s why I’ve been able to sell 311,958 new memberships, which is a record for any party.”
Considered one of the front-runners in the federal leadership race, Poilievre said he’s feeling confident, but he isn’t taking anything for granted.
Asked what issues he’s been hearing about in his Saskatchewan tour, he said mainly it’s a complaint that he’s hearing all across Canada.
“Right across the country people are angry about Trudeau’s high-cost energy. He’s driven the gas prices up deliberately, and people can’t afford to gas up their cars, heat their homes or their small businesses. He’s attacked the energy sector, which has meant we’re importing 130,000 barrels of oil from overseas every single day to Canada,” said Poilievre.
He noted that now Trudeau has launched an attack on the agriculture sector by requiring a 30-per-cent reduction of emissions from fertilizer by 2030.
“He has no idea how to do that other than cutting the use of fertilizer by the same amount, which will mean less food. Fertilizer exists for one reason, to increase the output per acre. It allows food to be more affordable and use less of a footprint of land,” he said, but with this arbitrary cutback of fertilizer use, it will mean less food can be produced and reduce farm income.
“With less food produced, that will mean higher prices at the grocery store, and more reliance on foreign farming rather than domestic farming,” he added.
If he is named the winner of the Conservative leadership race, he acknowledges that the first challenge will be to unite the party under him to fight the next federal election.
“That’s always the number one challenge,” said Poilievre, pointing out all Conservatives have the same goals.
“We need to increase the purchasing power of the dollar so people can afford a good quality of life. We need to bring back energy, food and manufacturing here in Canada, balance the budget and stop adding all this debt. These are the goals of all Conservatives. We need to unite around those goals, and if we do, we’ll win the election,” he said.
The candidate is reminding all party members they need to get their ballots mailed in time, at least within the last 10 days of August, to be received for counting starting on Sept. 6. The party has hired the accounting firm of Deloitte to do the counting, and to release the results as of Sept. 10.
