Trudeau tells Poilievre to ‘wake up,’ urges Liberal convention to reject populism – National

Canadians chose hope over fear and anger in 2015 and they will be faced with that choice again the next time they go to the polls, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday as he delivered an opening night keynote speech to Liberal faithful at the party’s policy convention in Ottawa.

The next election could still be more than two years away but Trudeau left no doubt that we are already hurtling toward it, that he intends to run in it, and that he knows who poses the biggest threat to his hold on power.

“Pierre Poilievre’s populism, his slogans and buzzwords, are not serious solutions to the serious challenges we’re facing,” Trudeau said.

Conservatives, he said, call Liberals “too woke” for investing in people, in economic growth, in families and in climate change.

“Too woke?” Trudeau hissed. “Hey, Pierre Poilievre, it’s time for you to wake up.”

And the crowd roared to life, leaping to their feet, chanting his name.

Then he launched into a list of Conservative actions the Liberals are clearly planning to use as ammunition. Poilievre’s advice last year to invest in cryptocurrencies to “opt out of inflation” just before the market for many of the biggest crypto companies flopped.

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Trudeau says Poilievre’s attacks on CBC while running ‘to American billionaires’ for support ‘telling’ of values

His dalliance with the “Freedom Convoy” and his recent meme exchange online with Tesla billionaire and new Twitter owner Elon Musk, making fun of the CBC.

And his caucus being chastised by President Joe Biden in the House of Commons for failing to stand up when Biden applauded the gender-equal cabinets in both Canada and the United States.

“Wake up to the fact that a gender-balanced cabinet is a good thing,” Trudeau thundered.

He also heavily promoted the Liberals’ child tax benefit increase that helped pull thousands of Canadian children out of poverty, and the recent national child-care program to reduce fees to as little as $10 a day.

It’s a program still in progress, but is proving popular enough conservative premiers in at least four provinces have, or are, campaigning on it.

“By the way, when we see that women’s participation…