Poilievre says Trudeau should 'quit his job' after PM boasts about wildly unpopular carbon tax

In Wednesday’s Question Period, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeated a discredited talking point about “eight out of 10 Canadians” receiving more back from a carbon tax “rebate” than they pay in the carbon tax, Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievere corrected him and suggested he “quit his [day] job.”

Poilievre suggested Trudeau was reading from a script that amounted to a “comedy routine.”

“I was going to say that he shouldn't quit his day job but actually he should quit his job.”

Since Trudeau is always claiming support for his carbon tax from the Parliamentary budget officer, Poilievre suggested Trudeau “Google” his report “on the distribution of costs and benefits under the carbon pricing program. He can look at page three, where every single province that has the tax sees middle-class Canadians and 60 percent of families paying more in tax than they get back in benefits. Why won't he get to know the facts and axe the tax?”

Trudeau responded “the Leader of the Opposition's campaign [is] just [to] simply axe the facts. We are going to continue to stand with the science, the evidence, the research and the economists, who have all pointed out, including the parliamentary budget officer, that the Canada carbon rebate puts more money in the pockets of eight out of 10 families,” Trudeau said, repeating his claim.

The Conservative leader countered that Trudeau “shouldn't go into number crunching, whatever his next job is, because he doesn't believe the economy is about numbers. And I don't blame him because if I had his economic record, I wouldn't want to talk about numbers either.”

In another exchange over Trudeau’s national drug policy, House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus interrupted Poilievre after he suggested the Trudeau government is “helping to kill” Canadians.

He amended that statement to say “his policy is killing people.” but added “this prime minister is by far the most radical ideologue who's ever occupied that job. But always with these radical policies comes profiteering: the companies that are making the money off of the opioids that are funded by Canadian taxpayers and it is indeed sick.”