Pierre Poilievre dismissed the Liberals' newfound desire to stop the drug crisis, calling their decision to appoint a fentanyl czar "performative."
During a press conference in Vancouver, the Conservative leader suggested Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was feigning interest in solving the problem in an attempt to "trick" Canadians into giving his party a fourth term.
"Of course it's performative," Poilievere said when asked by the Western Standard about the Liberals' sudden change of heart. "The Liberals would like you to believe that they now agree with Pierre Poilievre and the Common Sense Conservatives on everything."
He pointed out that their about face should be viewed through the lens of the upcoming election.
"These lying Liberals are trying to trick Canadians into giving them a fourth term," Poilievre continued. "They're not going to change. The only way you'll get a change is by election a common-sense Conservative government that will put Canada first."
He went on to note that unlike Trudeau, he had been against the carbon tax, capital gains tax increase, open borders, and soft-on-criminals drug policies "all along."
"The Liberals will try to trick you into thinking they now agree with Pierre Poilievre on everything," Poilievre concluded. "There is only one common-sense, Canada first party that can change the country, and I am the leader of that party. I will be the one to stop the fentanyl and bring home the country that we knew and love."
Poilievre also slammed the Liberals for waiting so long to take action to stop the flow of fentanyl into Canada.
"It should not take a foreign leader to get the Liberals to wake up to the drug crisis that they have caused here at home," he lamented. "It should have been enough that we lost 50,000 of our people. We should crack down on drugs not to please President Trump, but to ensure that not one more mother has to bury her face in her hands upon learning that her son died of an overdose in a back alley somewhere."
Earlier Wednesday, Poilievre vowed to give life sentences to "fentanyl kingpins," those who traffick, produce, or export more than 40 milligrams of the drug.
