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Trudeau mocks Poilievre’s absence at annual Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner – National

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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre did not attend the press gallery dinner on Saturday evening, but he was nonetheless much of the focus of a long-standing political tradition of lobbing light-hearted shots at political rivals during speeches at the event.

The traditionally annual event sees politicians and journalists who work on Parliament Hill come together for an evening of laughs at each other’s expense, but it was put on hiatus for two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau began getting his digs in at Poilievre with the suggestion that the Conservative leader would have come if the press gallery had told him they were “occupying” the venue — a reference to his support for the “Freedom Convoy” protest.

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Poilievre declined an invitation to the dinner in similar fashion to his former boss and predecessor as head of the party, Stephen Harper.

Harper would also skip the black-tie event when he was in power but did attend when he was Opposition leader and showed off his funny bone.

While many of the jabs were indeed light-hearted, some walked the line between humour and insult.

Trudeau mentioned, for example, Poilievre’s comments on a podcast hosted by Jordan Peterson, a controversial commentator, about using plain language.

“He said he’s a believer in using simple Anglo-Saxon words,” Trudeau recalled. “I didn’t get it either, but I’m told it sounds much better in the original German.”


Click to play video: 'Andrew Scheer delivers jab at Jagmeet Singh for being ‘missing’ from Ottawa at press gallery dinner'


Andrew Scheer delivers jab at Jagmeet Singh for being ‘missing’ from Ottawa at press gallery dinner


At the time, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis had come to the defence…

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