WATCH: Pierre Poilievre Confronts Trudeau Over His Admiration Of “China’s Basic Dictatorship”

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre confronted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today in Parliamentary Question Period regarding his comments from 2013 where he stated he admires “China’s basic dictatorship”. 

Trudeau back in 2013 said the comments in the context of being asked which country he most admired. Trudeau picked China and said he admired that the country’s “basic dictatorship” allows it to implement strong public policy overnight to deal with issues such as carbon emissions. 

Of course, the current context behind Poilievre’s question is the ongoing scandal Trudeau and the Liberal Party are embroiled in involving China. Right now the Liberal Party is under fire over its potential involvement with or tolerance of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) actors in Canada funding pro-Beijing candidates (likely mostly Liberals) and trying to influence the outcome of elections.

Poilievre asks his question in admittedly a snarky fashion, trying to take a shot at Trudeau in the aftermath of the prime minister appointing a “special rapporteur” to investigate potential CCP interference. The perceived quality of the coming investigation is being widely ridiculed because it is not going to be a public inquiry, and the Liberals are allowing zero input from the opposition parties on the focus or scope of the investigation. 

It is telling that Trudeau refused to even repeat the “basic dictatorship” language he used in 2013 when confronted by Poilievre, and can only hide behind platitudes of respecting Canada’s institutions. Sometimes a politician not answering a question whatsoever proves how damaging the topic is to their brand. 

For the Conservative Party, it is a smart rhetorical move to keep on Justin Trudeau and the Liberals over his “basic dictatorship” comments as only very politically-engaged Canadians seem to be aware Trudeau ever made the comments. Now with the context of the CCP influence in Canada, many Canadians will see those 2013 comments as foreshadowing the current issues Canada’s democracy is facing, or at least show Trudeau is not the man to deal with it.