Canada

Pierre Poilievre speaks with conviction. “We are Conservatives,” he says. “We don’t believe in big fat government programs. We don’t believe in giving money.”

At first, that might sound like ordinary political talk. But these words are more than slogans. They are signals. They draw lines between who is deserving of support, and who is not. Between who counts, and who is left behind.

This is not about fiscal restraint. It’s about stripping away the systems that many of us rely on to survive and thrive. It’s about making life harder for people navigating poverty, housing precarity, chronic illness, disability, single parenthood, systemic racism, colonial legacies, gender-based violence. And then telling them it’s their fault.

Poilievre received a government pension at the age of 31. Later, he tried to target other MPs over their pensions in a public stunt. The reality? His own pension is roughly three times larger, projected to be around $230,000 annually by the time he turns 65. That number will only grow if he becomes Prime Minister. Soon after securing his pension, he voted to raise the retirement age for others to 67. He speaks of independence and “the value of hard work,” but only applies those values to communities who’ve been denied fair access to opportunities for generations. In 2008, he questioned whether survivors of residential schools should receive compensation, arguing instead that Indigenous peoples just need to “work harder.” In 2023, he addressed a group that claimed the harms of residential schools were a “myth.”

This is not just a political position. It’s an erasure of truth. It’s a refusal to reckon with Canada’s history and its ongoing impacts.