Among many promises made this morning, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told a large crowd of tradespeople that he plans to do away with the woke culture and bring in a warrior culture.
“This will be a country that works for the workers,” he told a group of more than 100 people at the Boilermakers Local 128 Training Centre in Burlington on Thursday morning. "A country where hard work pays off with a powerful paycheque that buys affordable food, gas and homes in safe neighbourhoods based on the common sense of the common people."
The visit was part of Poilievre’s tour in the Golden Horseshoe to meet with Canadians and share his common sense plan to axe the tax, stop the crime, and build the homes, including by highlighting his recent announcement to cut the sales tax on new homes under $1 million, which he says will save Canadian families $43,225 on the purchase of the average home in Ontario.
The local crowd cheered wholeheartedly as Poilievre said that alone will stimulate an additional 30,000 new home builds every year that will create jobs for people and affordable homes for people.
The 'Canadian promise'
“I will also require municipalities speed up permits, free up land and cut development taxes as a condition of getting their federal infrastructure money,” he said. “What we need in this country is more boots and less suits.”
He said Canada had a deal he calls the Canadian promise.
“You work hard, you get good food and a nice house on a safe street and it doesn't matter where you come from, you can achieve anything you want with hard work,” Poilievre said. “That was the deal. But after nine years of Trudeau and the NDP Liberals, that deal, like everything else is broken, everything costs more.
“We've got two million people lined up at food banks, 25 per cent of our population living in poverty. We have 1,400 homeless encampments now in Ontario alone,” he said, adding Toronto is the 10th most expensive housing market in the world. “We have in Canada today a situation where 80 per cent of Canadians say that only the very rich can have a home. Housing costs have literally doubled.”
He also said half a trillion more Canadian investment dollars have gone south to the United States than have returned.
“And that means that Canadian money has been creating American jobs, American boilermakers, American pipe fitters. American electricians are earning wages off Canadian investment dollars as businesses flee the destructive economic vandalism, the high taxes and bureaucracy imposed by Justin Trudeau.
“But the good news is life was not like this before Trudeau. And it won't be like this after he's gone.”
Less tax, more homes
He said that Canadians will choose between the NDP/Liberals “who tax your food, punish your work, take your money, double your housing costs, and unleash crime and chaos in your community or common sense Conservatives who will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.”
He said there’s zero carbon tax in the States, and that Trudeau will quadruple it to 61 cents/litre, “that will grind our economy to a halt.”
He also promised the Conservatives will cut income tax so workers can bring home more of the money they earn.
“Hard work actually pays off. We'll make it so that the trades workers can write off the full cost of their food, transportation, and accommodation to go from one job site to another,” he said.
He also pledged that more homes will be built in Canada.
“We have the fewest homes per capita of any country in the G7, even though we have by far the most land to build on,” he said. “What's stopping us?
“Government is the number one cost in a new home. Government taxes make up one third of the cost of every new home in Ontario today.”
Further he said the delays caused by “the consultants, the lawyers, the changing policies, all which feed the bureaucracy, but don't build homes. In fact, when you buy a new home today, more of the money from what you pay goes to bureaucrats than goes to the carpenters, electricians, and plumbers who actually build the homes.
“That will stimulate an additional 30,000 new home builds every single year that will create jobs for people and affordable homes for our people.”
Additionally, he said he will also require municipalities to speed up permits, free up land and cut development taxes as a condition of getting their federal infrastructure money to get more homes built.
“We'll sell off 6,000 federal buildings and thousands of acres of federal land to build, build, build. And we will back the trades,” Poilievre said. “We're going to need boots and not suits to build in the future.”
The Ontario government is investing $3 million over three years in Helmets to Hardhats Canada to help 650 active and former Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members transition to civilian life by training them for careers in Ontario’s construction sector. Poilievre said he will also support that program.
Helmets to Hardhats Canada, a registered non-profit organization that provides second career opportunities in the construction industry to those in the military community through tailored referral services, safety training and peer counselling for serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces, veterans and military families, will receive federal funding too.
Furthermore, he said, federal government money has been going to universities and white-collar education. “We need more skilled trades and I will make sure that the lion's share of federal education and training dollars go to the trades because that's what we need to build this economy.”
Below, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (centre) with some of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers in Burlington on Thursday morning (from left): Jacques Mineault, Goksen (Turk) Nalsok, Eddie Wall and Dave Maddison. Julie Slack Photo
