The following is a transcript of the Hon. Pierre Poilievre’s address to Conservative MPs on September 16, 2026. Please find the video here. These remarks have been edited for clarity. Check against delivery.
Penticton, BC – Merci Beaucoup. Bienvenue en Colombie-Britannique. Thank you very much to the great Conservative team fighting for Canadians, fighting for you back home. I thought that I heard when I was in the hallway, the caucus chair referred to me as Elvis. I think our slogan will be: “a little less conversation, a little more action please” for the government, right? And I see, from all the farmers’ tans we have in the room here today, you’ve been out on the barbecue circuit, meeting with people on job sites in your communities, listening to the loggers, the miners, the small business owners à travers le Canada, working on behalf of people.
Ana and I have been across the country. I’ve been to nine of 10 provinces, all the regions, countless towns, villages, and elsewhere. And, of course, back home in Ottawa. I’ve been bossed around by Spider-Man and Ghost Spider. It has been a great adventure indeed, but it is even greater to be back here in beautiful British Columbia.
I used to love to joke that the Okanagan was the best part of Alberta as I was growing up. I’m part of that alien species that invades British Columbia every single summer. We Albertans love this province in our neighboring Okanagan. And we are all inspired by the firefighters, the first responders, the small businesses, the charities, the local agencies who’ve been fighting the fires and taking care of our beloved people.
All of Canada needs to learn from resilience, the hardiness, and the determination of the people of Okanagan who’ve had a very difficult and smoky summer.
And we need much of that spirit right across Canada right now because we gather at a very difficult time for Canadians. People want our government to succeed in the face of the unfair tariffs and trolling from President Trump and his administration. And we as Conservatives know about this because as the “Party of Confederation”, we always put Canadians above all else.
Our duty is country before party, now and always.
As Canadian patriots, we must reflect on the job we have as “Loyal Opposition” in these challenging times.
Les Canadiens veulent que le gouvernement réussisse à faire face aux tarifs injustes et aux provocations du président Trump. Et nous, en tant que conservateurs, le parti de la Confédération, nous sommes avant tout là pour défendre les Canadiens. Il est de notre devoir de faire passer le pays avant notre parti, et ce sera toujours le cas. En tant que fiers Canadiens, on doit réfléchir au rôle de l’Opposition durant cette période difficile.
Yes, we will unite to put the national interest first. We will support the government when they do something good and oppose them when they do something bad. To paraphrase a great American President, Abraham Lincoln, “I stand with a man when he stands right and I stand against him when he stands wrong.”
Last week I was in New York fighting for our workers and businesses. I think some of the commentators and journalists in the American media were a little bit befuddled by having a Canadian politician go on air, not willing to criticize his political opponents back home. And so, if I can channel Winston Churchill, who when he was in opposition said: « When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country, but when I get home, I make up for lost time. »
So what is our role in opposition?
In this time when people can’t afford their bills, are losing their jobs, the economy is flat, crime is worsening and our economy is facing unfair tariffs, our job is to unite, to fight for Canada abroad, at the same time as doing our duty of holding the government accountable here at home. That is what it means to be a loyal opposition.
We are loyal to Canada, but that means we have to be loyal to the Canadian people who are paying the cost of this government. If we love Canada, we have to love Canadians: all Canadians, in their real lives, their real experiences, what they’re going through every single day. We cannot forget about them.
The country is always more than its government. Criticizing a government’s costly decisions and championing the people who are paying the price is therefore a great act of patriotism.
With all that has happened, it can be hard right now to separate signal from sound.
But the trolling, the drama, the tweets, the speeches and the grandstanding don’t stop the bills from piling up for single moms, seniors and small business people. Real people with kids to feed, rent and mortgages to pay, jobs to protect and retirements to secure. We have a duty to fight for the people who are struggling here at home: real people in the real world.
Just today, Money Matters published a survey that said 49 per cent of Canadians say they are less financially secure than they were a year ago. Only 17 per cent say they are more financially secure. So Canadians who feel worse off outnumber those who feel better off by nearly three to one. That is Mark Carney’s record here at home.
Les provocations, les discours et les coups d’éclat n’empêchent pas les factures de s’accumuler pour les gens ordinaires qui ont des enfants à nourrir, un loyer ou une hypothèque à payer, un emploi à protéger et une retraite à sécuriser. On a le devoir de se battre pour ceux qui sont aujourd’hui en difficulté, c’est-à-dire les gens qui vivent ici au Canada : monsieur et madame Tout-le-Monde. Aujourd’hui, on voit un sondage publié qui montre que 49% des Canadiens se sentent moins sécuritaires financièrement qu’il y a 12 mois. Il y a seulement 17% qui se disent être mieux. Donc, ça veut dire que trois fois plus de Canadiens se sentent en moins grande sécurité financière qu’il y a un an. C’est ça le bilan, ici chez nous, de Mark Carney.
When I was in the Lower Mainland, a young articling student told me that her dream is to buy a home and start a family. And then she chuckled and said: « But that’s a pipe dream. » I could hear through that laugh sadness in her voice.
I spoke to loggers about losing their jobs and their entire communities vanishing. There’s been 30 mills closed here in British Columbia in the last ten years. I spoke to small businesses who are moving out of town centers in places like Penticton because crime is so dangerous. They cannot risk being in their communities.
Who speaks for them? Should we shut up about their stories until Donald Trump goes away? No, their voices need to be heard more than ever. We are their voices and we will fight for them every single day.
You’ve all heard the same stories. You’ve detected the same sadness and quiet desperation in the voices of too many of your constituents. You’ve shared those stories with me. You’ve said that many are falling behind, just scraping by or not getting ahead.
And if you’re one of those struggling Canadians out there today, let me speak directly to you.
You’ve done everything right. This is not your fault. So why is your life so difficult? You worked hard, you followed the rules, you loved your country. That used to be enough. The Canadian promise was always that doing these things would make sure that you would have the bounty of this country: an affordable life, a safe neighborhood, a secure retirement at the end of it all.
In the last year and a half, you were promised change.
And sure, there have been summits and speeches and symbolic signing ceremonies. But where are the results for you at the gas pump, on your grocery bill, or with your rent or mortgage payment?
Inflationary deficits, high taxes and red tape are costing you. Food prices are outrageous. And just this week we learned that inflation is still 50% higher than target. Mortgage rates are rising. Bureaucracy blocks homebuilding with the pace of construction down 11% last quarter compared to this time last year, after the Prime Minister promised he was going to double homebuilding.
Mark Carney promised free trade within Canada. Remember? We were going to have one Canadian economy, not 13? Well, we still have all the internal trade barriers. Today I met with wine producers who say they can’t even sell their product from the Okanagan across Canada. In fact, they said it’s easier to sell their goods overseas than it is in this country. And by the way, that is a federal barrier and we’re calling on the Liberals to pass Dan Albas’s bill requiring Canada Post deliver Canadian wine to Canadian consumers right now. One Canadian economy!
Too much money printing and population growth drove home ownership out of reach for an entire population. Reckless immigration policies added people faster than jobs, homes and healthcare.
And what has really changed since that time? Just in the last year and a half, Mark Carney has doubled the deficit and he’s added hundreds of billions of dollars of new spending above the reckless levels that he inherited. In fact, we are now at the highest levels of government spending as a share of the economy since 1996, and the biggest deficit outside of COVID in Canadian history. The problems are getting worse.
Au cours des derniers mois, vous avez entendu des promesses. Oui, il y a eu des sommets, des discours, des cérémonies de signature, mais où sont les changements pour vous dans le prix à la pompe, sur votre facture d’épicerie et le prix de votre loyer. Les déficits inflationnistes augmentent, le déficit a en fait doublé. Et maintenant l’inflation est 50% plus élevée que la cible. Encore une fois, Mark Carney a promis le libre-échange dans notre pays, mais vous ne pouvez toujours pas acheter des produits canadiens dans d’autres provinces à travers le Canada. L’impression incontrôlée de l’argent et la croissance démographique à cause de l’immigration hors de contrôle a privé toute une génération de jeunes de s’acheter une maison, un problème qui devient de pire en pire.
Just today, we were meeting with small businesspeople who say their input costs are rising faster than their revenues and they don’t know how they’re going to keep their doors open. When the Liberals tell you that, and I quote, « affordability is the best that it has been in a decade”, they are out of touch and Canadians are out of money.
The good news is it doesn’t have to be this way. Conservatives have a better path forward. We have a real plan to restore the promise of an affordable, safe and independent Canada. Our mission is to save you money, save your job, keep you safe, fix immigration and put Canada first. We have a plan to do it.
Notre mission en tant que conservateurs, c’est de vous faire sauver de l’argent, protéger votre emploi, assurer la sécurité dans vos rues, régler le système d’immigration et mettre le Canada d’abord.
Our number one priority when we get back to the House, number one priority, is to save you money. You the single mother, you the small business owner, you the struggling senior. We need to save you money and we’ve got a plan to do it.
In fact, our Conservative team has been scouring the budget and we have found $150 billion of savings – that’s almost $10,000 per family in Canada – that we can reduce in wasteful bureaucracy, consultants, foreign aid, handouts to phony asylum claimants, corporate welfare and massive money losing boondoggles like the Alto Rail project. This savings will lower debt, taxes and inflation.
On a déjà trouvé 150 milliards de dollars, c’est 10 000 dollars par famille canadienne en économies, qu’on va utiliser pour réduire l’inflation, la dette et les taxes.
We will save you money on housing by scrapping all taxes on home building and pressuring municipalities to speed up permits and free up land. We will save on food and fuel by fighting to get rid of all taxes, not just some, on fuel through to Canada today. Save on cars and protect jobs for Canadian auto workers by taking GST off vehicles made in Canada.
We want to save jobs for all Canadians, which brings me to our second priority. If the US wants to raise costs on its businesses through tariffs, we must respond by lowering them on ours. We must out compete the Americans, not out-tax them. Yes, that’s our plan.
We must unleash our businesses to hire, grow, invent, build and do so with the fastest permits, lowest taxes and freest economy anywhere on earth. We must scrap the anti-development laws, including the Industrial Carbon Tax, C-69, and other laws that stand in the way.
Let’s get rid of the capital gains tax for anybody who brings their money back and invests in Canada.
And our message to the Prime Minister: you’ve got 500 projects that are waiting for permits. They’re sitting on your desk. You don’t need another press conference, a signing ceremony, or an advertisement paid by tax dollars. You simply need to grant the permit, get out of the way and let Canadians get building now. And we will use that leverage to fight for tariff-free trade in both directions.
We also will keep you safe. On public safety, we want to fight this session to repeal all Liberal bail and catch-and-release laws and get rid of soft-on-crime policies once and for all. We must also adopt Michelle Rempel Garner’s Bill that gets rid of sentencing discounts for non-citizen criminals in our country. Anyone who does the crime should do the time and, if they’re not Canadian, they should be sent back home.
We’ll stand with law-abiding Canadians by repealing the gun grab, restoring free speech and standing up for religious freedom.
We’ll fix immigration. We also need to reduce the total numbers. We’ll make sure that we stop foreign criminals from coming here and ensure that Canadians always come first for Canadian jobs, Canadian healthcare and Canadian homes, while providing a path for law-abiding, hardworking immigrants in numbers we can absorb. We will also make sure they can get their credentials recognized through a Blue Seal so that we can reduce wait times in our hospitals and build our economy for us all.
Finally, we need to put Canada first, in this time now more than ever. The decisions for our country though must not be made in Washington, Beijing or Brussels, but by Canadians here at home.
We obviously believe that we have to trade and talk with China. It’s one of the most amazing civilizations ever, but we do not believe in a strategic partnership for a new world order with Beijing: a regime that the Prime Minister called the biggest threat to Canada only a year ago.
We will also do what’s necessary to fight for tariff free trade with our American neighbors to the south, our biggest customer.
And finally, we will continue to support cooperation with our European allies. Of course, that is the Conservative tradition. It was the Conservative Party that negotiated the free trade agreement with the European Union, and we have the longest history of supporting the NATO alliance which includes 30 European countries. That’s not new.
The Prime Minister, however, needs to get his story straight. He says he wants a possible associate membership, or a unique alliance, or whatever else he is secretly negotiating with the EU. But Conservatives are clear: while we support free trade and continued NATO cooperation with our European allies, Conservatives say no EU taxes, no EU laws, and no EU open border rules on immigration in Canada.
Canadians are not pawns on a global chess board. They deserve to be masters in their own homes. Canada must be independent and sovereign, period. We are here to restore the promise of an affordable, safe and independent Canada.
On est ici pour rétablir la promesse d’un Canada abordable, sécuritaire et autonome. Un Canada qui est maître chez lui.
So to the Canadians listening, once again: that is the promise that you were made. You kept your end. The government broke its.
So picture the morning when this promise is restored. Your mortgage is coming down and your bank balance is going up. You have a full fridge, a full gas tank and a full wallet all at once. Your downtown streets are clean and safe. Every hardworking family that wants a home can own one. Seniors retire comfortably knowing their kids have the same opportunity that they did. And a young couple stands in their house holding their newborn, knowing that if she works hard, the country will work hard for her too.
That she can inherit a country that produces what it needs, controls its own destiny and is the envy of the world. A Canada that bows before no one and stands on its own two feet. Some people may say this is too idealistic, but we Conservatives know it is realistic because we believe in this country, its people and its promise.
It was great Conservatives like John A. Macdonald who bound this country together with a promise of opportunity. We will fight this Fall and always to restore this promise: the promise of an affordable, safe and independent Canada. We will fight for that Canada. We will fight for you.
God bless our country. Thank you very much.