LISTEN: Pierre Poilievre gives Carney D- grade in protecting Canada from tariffs, Trump

It’s been a busy week for Federal Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre, who recently made a stop in Saskatchewan to announce his party’s action against future Canadian electric vehicle regulations and to question what the federal government will do to help Canadian canola farmers.

This also comes days before the upcoming byelection in Alberta’s Battle River—Crowfoot riding, where Poilievre is vying for a seat back in parliament.

Poilievre joined the Evan Bray Show to discuss a number of topics, including his grade of Mark Carney’s government, what he would do differently and how he would protect Canadian farmers.

Listen to the full interview with Poilievre, or read the transcript below:

The following questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

EVAN BRAY: I was surprised to see you here, literally, four days ahead of the Battle River-Crowfoot byelection. Does that speak to your confidence in the outcome of that election?

PIERRE POILIEVRE: I think it speaks to the geography. We’re right next door. The riding I’m running in is in east central Alberta, so it wasn’t a long drive. Well, it would be long if you were a Torontonian, but for those of us who spent time on the prairies, it’s not that long to go from eastern Alberta to Saskatoon. We’re back there today and we’re holding a number of town halls and door-knocking sessions right through to Monday and hoping for the best result.

Let’s talk about the longest ballot committee, a record-breaking 214 names. Although legally it can be done, I’m calling it election interference. Am I wrong?

POILIEVRE: No, you’re not wrong. It is clearly targeted at me personally, because I was the only federal leader who faced this in the last election. If they were just trying to make a general point about the electoral system, they would have done it to all the leaders, but they didn’t. They did one, and then they followed me to this byelection. But we’re working hard to make sure people know exactly how to vote.

Is there a need for election reform? What steps should be taken?

POILIEVRE: Yes, and it’s very simple on this one. All we’d have to do is say that every candidate who gets on the ballot has to have their own 100 signatures from local residents supporting them, and those signatures have to be unique. So you can only sign for one candidate. Then they would need 20,000 signatures to get 200 candidates, and that wouldn’t happen. So what they’ve done is they’ve taken the same 100 signatures for all 200 candidates, and so it’s easy. It costs nothing. There’s no deposit, and it is a cheap way to just to ruin the experience for everyone else.

We saw recently a response to these canola tariffs, although not from the States, but from China, and it feels like it’s been a lot more subdued. Our premier has been calling on the feds to do something. What needs to be done?

POILIEVRE: We have to cancel the billion-dollar loan that the federal government is giving to B.C. Ferries to buy ships from China. First of all, these ships should be built in Canada. We should have the ability to build ships, not just for ferries, but we need the shipbuilding capacity if, God forbid, there’s a war one day.

And yet, the federal Carney government is giving a billion-dollar loan to bankroll the acquisition of Chinese-made ships, at a time when they’re attacking our farmers. Let’s cancel that. I think we run a big trade deficit with the Chinese economy. Let’s tariff other things and say we’re going to continue to tariff Chinese goods until they remove all of the tariffs on our agricultural and seafood products.

So we need to be more aggressive?

POILIEVRE: I think we do. I mean, Beijing is walking all over us. They smell weakness with Mark Carney; he’s obviously backing down to Donald Trump, and so Beijing says this is someone who backs down when he’s attacked, and that’s why they’re going after our farmers.

I also think it’s crazy that Mark Carney said nothing about this, like literally nothing, dead silent. He had time to tweet about International Cat Day, but did not say a word about Chinese tariffs on our 40,000 canola producers across the country. I saw that after I made that point, he suddenly got on Twitter very quickly and put out a post. But it really speaks to how this government ignores and disrespects the prairie producers and Western Canadians in general.

What about the EV tariff? Some people are saying, putting those EV tariffs on is what got us here in the first place. Should they be coming off? You’re saying we need to be tariffing more Chinese products.

POILIEVRE: I think we need to tell the Chinese government that this could get a lot worse, because we buy way more from the Chinese than they buy from us. They have a big surplus with us. They prevent our goods from getting into their economy already.

There are also national security problems with Chinese EVs; some of these could be roving surveillance vehicles, they have cameras, they have GPS connections, satellite information, all kinds of data collection that could go right back to Beijing. And we have to be very careful about having a million Canadians driving around in what I describe as potentially roving surveillance vehicles controlled by the regime in Beijing.

Let’s talk about the United States and U.S. tariffs. If you are in a room, one-on-one, no media, no staffers, just you and Donald Trump. What are you saying?

POILIEVRE: We’re sure as hell not going to be the 51st state, but we can have a great trading relationship again. I think the deal that the Americans want and that we could accept is we strengthen our contribution to security and defence, and they give us free trade.

We should take full ownership of securing the Arctic. That means more icebreakers, Poseidon aircraft and fighter jets. We need at least two bases in the Arctic. We haven’t had one since the Cold War. We need to do more of our part in defending the continent against threats like China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, and then in exchange for that, we demand to have more integration in trade. We should have full access to the American economy without tariffs attacking our exporters. And I think that’s a deal that would win both countries better security, better wealth and better safety.

What’s the strategy to get there? What do you think of the way Mark Carney has handled this? The theory being, let’s not get a quick deal, let’s get the right deal, even if it takes time.

POILIEVRE: I’m not saying we need to be faster, but what has Carney done so far? All he’s done is make concessions. He originally said he would have dollar-for-dollar tariffs, and regardless of what you think of that idea, he then took the tariffs off. So he backed down.

He said he would have a digital services tax on American tech, and then he backed down on that.

Trump is detecting weakness. Trump has actually doubled tariffs on Canadian exports since Carney became prime minister. So it’s really hard to see what Carney has achieved. Meanwhile, we’re becoming increasingly isolated, as the Americans have signed deals with Europe, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and they have given extensions to Mexico and China. And so far, we have gotten nothing. So, if you just judge by the results, all of the hype about Mark Carney has failed to materialize in any serious results.

I’ve heard you say that the Liberal Party has stolen some plays from the conservative playbook. If you were giving a graded report card on what the Liberal government has come out with, has talked about and maybe has implemented so far, anything good? And what are your criticisms? What would you do differently?

POILIEVRE: I led the national campaign to axe the federal carbon tax. As a sort of desperate election ploy, Mark Carney, who was kind of the granddaddy of the carbon tax, he was the one that pushed it, reversed himself. So it was good that we were able to force him to do that.

On a report card, I’d say they’re at D minus right now, because they’re not getting anything serious done. He hasn’t identified a single pipeline, a single LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) plant that he would add. The deficit is bigger under Mark Carney than it was under Justin Trudeau. It’s hard to believe, but the financial situation has actually gotten worse under Carney compared to Mr. Budget will balance itself, Justin Trudeau.

The unemployment rate is higher. We’re hemorrhaging jobs. Inflation is back on the rise. If you just look at the objective measurement and not the gushing media coverage, you’d have to say that in a lot of ways, Carney is not different than Trudeau. He’s worse.

We know that there’s a focus on nation-building projects. Bill C5 passed with your party supporting that. Can we see success through building infrastructure and growing nation-building projects without changing some of those policies that have been put in place in the last number of years?

POILIEVRE: No major success. We might have one or two wins. But let me give you an example of pipelines. C5 would allow the government to go around all the laws in order to get a pipeline approved. Let’s say that they were theoretically to approve a pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta, to Kitimat, B.C., then the companies would say, ‘Well, where are we going to get the oil?’ And Carney would say, ‘Well, from Alberta.’ And they would say, ‘But you’ve got a production cap, so we can’t produce any more oil to fill the pipe.’ And then they’d say, ‘Where are we going to ship the oil?’ And he’d say, ‘Well, to Asia.’ And then the companies would say, ‘But you’ve got a ban on shipping oil off the north coast of B.C.’

So, even if you approve a pipeline, you wouldn’t have anything to put in it at the start point or take out of it at the end point. And therefore, no company is going to build that pipe. So you have to get rid of the ban on the offshore shipping of oil, and you’d have to get rid of the production cap. My view is, instead of just having a law that goes around all of the bad laws, why not just get rid of all the bad laws? Get rid of the production cap, get rid of C69, get rid of the ban on offshore shipping, the industrial carbon tax, get rid of all of those things, and then make this a place where the free enterprise system can invest hundreds of billions of dollars to build pipelines, LNG plants, the nuclear facilities, mines and more, without having to go to politicians and seek special permission under a very unusual law C5.

What about the gun laws?

POILIEVRE: Throw them out. I’m against all these ridiculous gun laws that target lawful people. We have to go after the criminals, throw them in the slammer, and you’ll solve the problem.

The Canadian Sovereignty Act is something that will be on your agenda this fall. Can you talk about your priorities this fall when the house is back?

POILIEVRE: The sovereignty act is designed to make our economy strong, self-reliant and sovereign, so we can make our own decisions and run our own lives. So it would legalize pipeline construction by getting rid of C69. It would speed up approval for LNG plants, mines and other major projects. It would get rid of the industrial carbon tax.

It would get rid of the capital gains tax altogether for those who reinvest their proceeds in Canada. So right now, you get a lifetime exemption on your capital gain, which is fine, I’d keep that, but anything above that, I would keep that as tax free, as long as the proceeds are reinvested in Canada by Canadian stocks, a Canadian business, maybe you open a Canadian restaurant, then that capital can roll over again and again and again. This would bring back the half trillion dollars of investment liberals have driven to the United States of America.

Now onto some rapid fire, how long do you think this government will last before we see another election?

POILIEVRE: It’s a guess, but I think it’ll be about two years.

Putin and Trump are meeting today. What should Canada’s stance be on the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

POILIEVRE: The biggest contribution we can make is to sell our natural gas and oil to Europe to break their dependence on Putin.

You’re on the doorstep over the next couple of days, meeting with people in Alberta. The byelection is on Monday. I don’t doubt you are hearing from people in Alberta who think that it’s time to separate from the rest of Canada. How do you respond to that?

POILIEVRE: I’d say the better way is for us to build alliances with our fellow Canadian provinces. Team up with Newfoundland, which wants to double its oil production. Team up with coastal First Nations that want to export our LNG to two and a half billion Asian customers. Team up with suburban Toronto residents who want to throw criminals in the slammer so that the crime wave in that area stops. Team up with Quebecers who want the federal government to be smaller and the country to be more decentralized with provincial autonomy, let’s build alliances to get results. That is the best way forward.