Poilievre attempts to woo union tradespeople during speech in Gatineau

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GATINEAU — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre got muted support from construction workers and tradespeople after delivering a campaign-style speech, illustrating the uphill battle the aspiring prime minister still has in wooing the country’s blue-collar unions.

In fact, Poilievre only managed to garner some applause from the room when he spoke about tax credits for travel and ending subsidies for foreign workers — which paled in comparison to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s standing ovation minutes before.

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Poilievre was the third political leader to speak at the Canada’s Building Trades Unions (CBTU) annual conference in Gatineau — after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Singh — but he did not participate in a fireside chat to answer questions like the first two.

Instead, he offered a speech about the rising cost of homes, “Justinflation” and how the working class has become the “working poor” by giving the example of a carpenter who lives in Northern Ontario who said he lived in his car because rent is too expensive.

“The carpenter who builds the home cannot afford to buy a home,” he said.

Kathleen Monk, a former NDP strategist and director of communications to the late Jack Layton, was in the room and said Poilievre didn’t necessarily connect with the audience for a number of reasons — and the story about the carpenters was one of them, she said.

“Obviously, he didn’t get a good brief. The carpenters aren’t in the room, nor are they affiliated to the Canadian Building Trades, nor are they affiliated to Canadian Labour Congress. They’re actually outside of the house of labour,” she said.

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“Knowing your audience is always key. So, there were some missteps there, I think.”

CBTU confirmed that the information was in fact accurate and that carpenters are “disaffiliated” from the organization. CBTU members include electrical workers, elevator constructors, operating engineers and transportation workers, to name a few.

Several participants declined to share their thoughts on Poilievre’s speech before the media were asked to leave the premises. Only one participant, who did not share his name, said it would have been “nice” if Poilievre had answered the CBTU’s questions.

Instead, the Conservative leader spent most of his speech detailing his four key campaign commitments to axe the carbon tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.

“I don’t think he read the room,” said Monk, who is president of the public affairs firm Monk + Associates. “I did see a lot of recycled material in the speech, stuff that didn’t necessarily connect with this audience.”

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The first applause in Poilievre’s nearly 30-minute speech came about the 20-minute mark when he promised to adopt Conservative MP Chris Lewis’ private member’s bill which would let tradespeople deduct travel expenses. The bill is currently in the Senate.

The room also applauded Poilievre for promising to “put an end to the abuse of the temporary foreign worker program.”

“My government policy will be very simple. There will be no tax dollars to subsidize foreign workers. Our tax dollars are for our workers in this country, period,” he said.

The CBTU had recently written to Trudeau demanding that he personally intervene as they claimed local workers were being “sidelined” by foreign employees at the new NextStar electric-vehicle battery plant in Windsor, Ont.

Trudeau assured the crowd during a fireside chat with Sean Strickland, CBTU’s executive director, on Monday that he would do everything he can to protect local jobs and committed to ensuring that most jobs for electric-vehicle projects would remain local.

The battle for blue collar workers has been ongoing between the Liberals, the Conservatives and the NDP, as all three federal parties have been claiming they best represent their interests and are trying to court their votes ahead of the election.

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On Tuesday, Singh pre-emptively took shots at Poilievre in front of the hundreds of tradespeople during the conference, arguing that he is not a true ally for union workers.

“I just want to remind folks that your real friends are there with you always, not when they’re trying to maneuver themselves and maybe win an election. Your real friends are there always, and your real friends are with you when you’re in a fight,” said Singh.

Strickland also praised the NDP Leader for helping the labour movement introduce more “progressive legislation than we have in any other five-year period of history” in Canada, noting that the anti-scab legislation is one of those landmark pieces.

Strickland for his part thanked Poilievre for engaging with the CBTU and encouraged him to “keep the dialogue going.”

National Post
calevesque@postmedia.com

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