Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre made another campaign-style stop in Nanaimo on Tuesday, Jan. 14, touring his party's plan on a number of high-profile topics, should they form government later this year. (Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Alex Rawnsley

Frequent visitor

Conservative leader delivers crime, drug and housing plans during Nanaimo pre-election stop

Jan 14, 2025 | 10:37 AM

NANAIMO — Pierre Poilievre’s pre-election push brought him to a Duke Point manufacturing business where he touted his party’s plan while offering misleading data on repeat criminal offenders.

The Conservative Party of Canada leader toured a facility on Maughan Rd. on Tuesday, Jan. 14, part of a multi-stop Vancouver Island and Sunshine Coast trip, which also includes events in Parksville and Powell River.

Speaking after the tour, Poilievre said his party is well positioned to make sweeping changes should they form government after the next election, scheduled for the fall but almost certainly to come this spring.

He said government intervention has negatively affected the housing market, by delaying or outright preventing homes from being built.

“We have the fewest homes per capita of any country in the G7, even though we have the most land to build on. Why? The answer is we have the second slowest permits of any country in the OECD, out of 37 countries…Sixty per cent of the cost of a new home in Vancouver is government: taxes, fees, charges, delays, lawyers, consultants, bureaucrats.”

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He said various Conservative tax cuts would see housing costs drop, including the removal of the GST on new homes up to a maximum of $50,000.

Poilievre said he would also petition provinces to remove the PST on new homes as well, while incentivizing local government to free up land through zoning and slash development cost charges (DCCs).

The City of Nanaimo uses DCCs to fund the construction of sidewalks, public parks and other amenities.

Poilievre watches on as Nanaimo-Ladysmith Conservative candidate Tamara Kronis speaks on Tuesday. (Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Poilievre also spoke about repeat violent offenders and pledged to repeal multiple bills which enabled so-called “catch and release”.

A Conservative government would replace it with one “jail not bail” bill which would make repeat violent offenders “ineligible for bail, parole, probation or house arrest, they will go the slammer and the worst offenders will never get out for the rest of their lives,” according to Poilievre.

To try and make his point, Poilievre provided misleading figures on arrests in Vancouver, suggesting 40 repeat offenders were arrested 6,000 times in one year.

The numbers stem from a 2022 letter applying to police interactions, not just arrests, with offences involving property crimes and not violent offences.

One lawyer told a Toronto media outlet arresting 40 people over 6,000 times in one year would be “impossible”.

Poilievre also pledged to ban illicit drugs and defund what he called “unsafe supply”.

He added those found guilty of selling drugs, people he referred to as “drug kingpins”, would face harsher penalties.

“They are murderers, whether they have wielded a knife or pulled the trigger on a gun, they know if they are selling thousands of hits of fentanyl they are guaranteed to be killing someone statistically in an overdose. They will do sentences that are the same as murderers when I’m Prime Minister, because they are murderers.”

Since winning the Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership race in 2022, Poilievre has made three prior campaign-style visits to Nanaimo, beginning in September, 2023.

His visits to the Harbour City featured about 1,000 supporters filling the Vancouver Island Conference Centre on April 1, 2024.

While the Conservatives don’t currently hold a seat in parliament on Vancouver Island, Poilievre and the party’s momentum suggests the Conservatives are primed to secure several of the Island’s seven federal ridings when the next government is formed.

– with files from Jordan Davidson

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