Pierre Poilievre was first elected in 2004 at the age of 25. Since his first election, this career politician has consistently sided with the wealthy at the expense of working people. His long track record as an MP proves that Poilievre is running for his friends – billionaires, banks, and big polluters – not workers, not you. 

A select few of Poilievre’s well-off friends will be better off if he becomes prime minister. Let’s look at who has benefited the most from Poilievre’s work these past 20 years and who stands to gain if Poilievre forms government.

Poilievre is corporate landlords’ best friend

  • Poilievre voted against initiatives to make housing affordable and address Canada’s housing crisis in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013, and 2014 when Conservatives were in power; and again in 2018 and 2019 as a member of the official opposition.
  • Poilievre was Housing Minister in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, which allowed 800,000 affordable rental units to be sold off to corporate landlords and developers.
  • Under the Harper Conservatives, the average home price in Canada went up 70% (worse than the awful 45% increase under the Liberals), and he refused to do anything about it.
  • Poilievre wants to terminate the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, cutting billions of dollars from housing construction and making it harder for municipalities to build more homes.
  • Some of Poilievre’s top donors are real estate investors – the same people cranking up rents and fighting rent control across the country.
  • If Poilievre wins, rich landlords and developers win – and the rest of us lose.

Poilievre is corporate lobbyists’ best friend

  • Nearly half of the Conservative Party’s governing body are lobbyists for oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, corporate landlords’ associations, anti-union construction associations, and business associations that advocate against wage increases for workers.
  • Poilievre’s chief strategist is a lobbyist for Galen Weston and Loblaws.
  • His deputy leader lobbied to protect a for-profit long-term care company that saw record profits and high fatalities during the pandemic.
  • His caucus chair is the chairman of a major grocery chain, who also voted against a national food program and an NDP bill to lower grocery prices.
  • If Poilievre wins, his lobbyist friends and their corporate clients win – while the rest of us pay more and are left behind.

Poilievre is your boss’s best friend

  • As a minister in Stephen Harper’s government, Poilievre loudly and proudly supported bills like C-377 and C-525, which tried to bury unions in bureaucracy and make it harder for workers to form a union of their own.
  • Poilievre is a big booster of US-style “right-to-work” laws that attack the Rand formula and starve unions of the resources they need to bargain better wages and benefits for their members.
  • Between 2004 and 2023, Poilievre voted against federal anti-scab legislation not once, not twice, but eight times!
  • Despite qualifying for a $120,000/year MP pension at the age of 31, Poilievre has spent most of his career working to ensure you never get a decent retirement or pension of your own. Poilievre supports hiking the retirement age from 65 to 67, and he also supports eliminating dependable defined benefit pensions and replacing them with inferior plans that take all the risk off banks and bosses and put it on the backs of workers.
  • If Poilievre wins, life gets a whole lot easier for your boss – while our rights and benefits as workers take a nosedive.

Poilievre is Big Oil’s best friend

  • Poilievre does not have a plan to fight climate change. He advocates for the fossil fuel industry’s preference for doing nothing. In his 20 years as an MP, Poilievre has voted against protecting the environment over 400 times.
  • If Poilievre wins, the CEOs who get rich from killing our planet win – while the rest of us face climate disaster.

Poilievre is billionaires’ best friend

Rather than another life-long politician like Poilievre who only looks out for his billionaire buddies, we need a government who looks out for workers and brings change that makes Canada a better, more affordable place to live. Sign up for CUPE Votes to join your fellow members in making it happen!

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