Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre promoted national unity while distancing himself from former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, who recently argued a vote for Mark Carney’s Liberals is a vote for Western secession.
“No,” said Poilievre when asked during a campaign stop Thursday if he agrees with Manning’s provocative op-ed in the Globe and Mail this week.
“We need to unite the country. We need to bring all Canadians together in a spirit of common ground.”
Manning, an elder statesman to many in conservative circles, argued that Carney is a threat to national unity and said Western Canadians “simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government.”
Manning said the push for secession is rooted in Alberta and Saskatchewan, long angered by the Liberals’ natural resource policies, but has the potential to spread to Manitoba, British Columbia and the territories.
“Voters, particularly in central and Atlantic Canada, need to recognize that a vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession — a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it,” Manning wrote.
Manning goes on to write that Western political leaders need to “provide a mechanism for recognizing and addressing the growing support for Western secession in an orderly and democratic manner.”
He suggested a conference or some kind of forum be held after the April 28 election to chart the next course of action.
“The next prime minister of Canada, if it remains Mark Carney, would then be identified in the history books, tragically and needlessly, as the last prime minister of a united Canada,” Manning, who led the Official Opposition in the late 1990s, wrote.
His Reform Party, a home to Western Canadian Conservatives who were disillusioned with Ottawa, later morphed into the Canadian Alliance and eventually merged with the Progressive Conservative Party to form the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada.
Poilievre, who at a young age was active with Manning’s more right-wing Reform Party, did not engage with Manning’s arguments during his Thursday news conference, but argued a Conservative government would be best to unite the country.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, speaking from Kingston, Ont., on Day 12 of the election campaign, responds to a question about an op-ed by Reform Party founder Preston Manning who argued Western Canada will secede if the Liberals win the election.
“We can’t give the Liberals a fourth term in power,” he said during a campaign stop in Kingston, Ont., leaning on his go-to arguments of this election campaign.
“What we need is a new Conservative government that will unite Canadians, unleash our resource production, cut taxes on our workers and entrepreneurs so that we can bring home our jobs, and stand up to President [Donald] Trump from a position of strength for a change.”
Earlier this week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she’s not interested in a referendum on Alberta independence, but said citizens do have a mechanism if there’s enough support.
“We have a citizen-initiated process where if you get enough petition signatures you can force a vote,” she said.
“I got a mandate to fix Canada.”
In a letter that was made public this week, Smith did write to Quebec Premier François Legault about pushing for greater provincial autonomy.
“I see an opportunity before us, as the democratically elected leaders of Alberta and Quebec, to chart a path toward a new era in Canadian federalism,” Smith said in the March 21 letter penned to her Quebec counterpart.
Poilievre’s comments come amid a renewed sense of patriotism in many corners of Canada as Trump wages a punishing, and oftentimes confusing, trade war against Canada, his country’s once closest ally.
