WATCH: Poilievre vows to name monuments after John A. Macdonald, says Liberals trying to 'cancel our history'

Pierre Poilievre has vowed that, if elected, his government will ensure Canadian heritage is celebrated, not shunned.

The Conservative leader said that plan would include naming monuments after Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald.

"We need a renewed commitment to celebrating our heritage and our identity," Poilievre said when asked how he would strengthen "cultural sovereignty" amid tensions between Canada and the United States.

"Over the last 10 years there's been a tendency to tear down our statues, change the names of different public monuments in order to cancel our history."

He argued that such moves have "weakened the bonds that used to tie us together," and that it was high time to "celebrate our history" instead.

"We should honour our first prime minister, John A. Macdonald," Poilievre continued. "Without him we would not have a Canada today. His vision of an east-west nation is really, now more than ever, needed, so we will be naming public monuments after him and many of our other historical figures."

He went on to note that his government would also do more to celebrate Canada's military history of "defending freedom at home and around the world," and expand programs that "bring our people together from coast to coast to coast to coast."

"Now more than ever we have to celebrate our proud heritage," he concluded, "and our common Canadian identity."

Over the past few years, the government and its agencies have gone to great lengths to highlight the negative aspects of Macdonald's life. Parks Canada, for example, launched a "racism" tour of his home so people could "examine topics like social class structures, racism and sexism in Victorian Canada while looking closer at some of Macdonald's political decisions."

Statues of Macdonald across the country have been moved, vandalized, or outright destroyed, with little pushback from those in power in Ottawa.