Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre will visit Trail and Castlegar on Thursday.
The opposition leader is scheduled to hold a rally at the Riverbelle in Trail at 12:15 p.m., which is open to the public, and visit Kalesnikoff Lumber later in the afternoon.
Poilievre is in Penticton today, which is also part of the South Okanagan-West Kootenay riding, represented by New Democrat Richard Cannings.
“I want to listen to the good common sense solutions in both the South Okanagan and the West Kootenay,” Poilievre said in a phone interview. “People that feel like they’ve been forgotten by the NDP and Justin Trudeau, I want them to know they have my ear.”
Poilievre, who hails from Calgary, said he is familiar with the East Kootenay, but this will be his first time in the West Kootenay.
Trail and Castlegar have been represented by New Democrat MPs since 2006, but Poilievre insisted many people are angry at the NDP for propping up the Liberals’ minority government.
“All the hard working people in places like Trail and Castlegar feel betrayed by the NDP. The NDP’s now working for Justin Trudeau … The NDP has turned its back on the working class people of British Columbia and the Conservatives are the only ones standing up for common sense of the common people in our common hall.”
Poilievre says he brings several major messages, including that his party wants to lower prices by eliminating the carbon tax; to lower income taxes; to make homes more affordable by providing municipalities with incentives to speed up and lower the cost of building permits; and to make communities safer by keeping violent repeat offenders in jail and providing treatment for people addicted to drugs.
Poilievre became leader of the Conservatives in September 2022.
The House of Commons is on its summer break.
