Maxime Bernier says PPC would cut foreign aid to shrink government spending

Maxime Bernier and the People's Party of Canada launched their official campaign from Saint-Georges, Que., on Monday, focused on slashing government spending while halting immigration.

"We need to stop that to preserve our culture, our standard of living, our economy," Bernier said.

The former Conservative MP for Beauce is pitching his party — which strongly opposed COVID-19 lockdowns — as the "real conservatives" in this federal election.

In a scorched-earth exit from the Conservative Party of Canada in 2018 to found the People's Party of Canada (PPC), Bernier accused his former party of being too "intellectually and morally corrupt" to be reformed. 

Bernier outlined on Monday the four pillars of the PPC platform: pausing immigration, ending what he described as "woke" policies, boosting the economy by cutting spending and implementing policies related to national security.

"Our country is broken," Bernier said, noting that he would withdraw Canada from United Nations commitments, such as The Paris Agreement, the World Health Organization and the Global Compact for Migration.

"We won't fight in Ukraine. We will also cut foreign aid and bring that money home," the Saint-Georges native said.

Bernier devoted parts of his speech to take aim at Liberal Leader Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre for changing their positions on carbon pricing and for supporting carbon capture and storage, which the PPC leader described as costly and "inefficient technology."

Cutting federal funding for CBC/Radio-Canada is another key element of Bernier's plan to reduce government spending, he said.

"If CBC is going bankrupt, that's OK. We're in a capitalist system," he said.

Abolishing diversity, equity and inclusion

Shortly before his departure from the Conservative Party, Bernier made controversial comments online, criticizing the Trudeau government for allegedly pursuing "extreme multiculturalism," statements which several commentators have called xenophobic and racist.

In 2019, he faced criticism for tweets describing then 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg as "mentally unstable," although he later softened his comments.

Bernier vowed on Monday that his party would fight to ensure Canadian citizenship remains a "privilege."

He invoked the dog whistle "woke-ism" — a catch-all term used pejoratively to describe everything from support for anti-racist measures and progressive policies to virtue-signalling.

He said on Monday that his party would have "concrete policies" to fight the ambiguous notion but stopped short of explaining what those policies would be, beyond halting government spending related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

"Diversity, equity and inclusion — it is not in line with our Western civilization values," Bernier said. "We need to promote unity, equalization of rights and meritocracy."

Bernier has been accused of courting far-right, conspiratorial racists, especially throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and appeared on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones's podcast as recently as March 22.

The PPC has denied that people with "extreme views" are welcome in the party.

It received five per cent of the national vote during the 2021 federal election.