Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre has denounced German MEP Christine Anderson, who became famous last year for confronting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as “vile” and “racist” and not welcome in Canada.
Mr Poilievre, who has led the CPC since last September on a seemingly populist pro-freedom platform, released a statement Friday after three CPC MPs attended an event with Ms Anderson, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD).
“Christine Anderson’s views are vile and have no place in our politics. The MPs were not aware of this visiting Member of the European Parliament’s opinions, and they regret meeting with her,” Poilievre said in a statement posted to social media by Toronto Sun columnist Brian Lilley and reported by broadcaster CTV.
“Frankly, it would be better if Anderson never visited Canada in the first place. She and her racist, hateful views are not welcome here,” Poilievre added.
The denouncement comes just a year after Anderson confronted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during Trudea’s visit to the Europan Parliament, slamming the Canadian leader for his treatment of the Freedom Convoy protestors, which saw the government freeze bank accounts of supporters of the protests after invoking the Emergencies Act for the first time in history to crack down on protesters in Ottawa.
“[I]t would have been more appropriate for Mr Trudeau — Prime Minister of Canada — to address this house according to article 144,” Anderson said last year.
“An article which was specifically designed to debate violations of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, which is clearly the case with Mr Trudeau,” the German explained.
“Then again, a Prime Minister who openly admires the Chinese ‘basic dictatorship’, who tramples on fundamental rights by persecuting and criminalising his own citizens as terrorists, just because they dared to stand up to his perverted concept of democracy, should not be allowed to speak in this house at all,” she added.
It is unclear which specific views of Anderson’s Poilievre was referring to in his statement, but journalist Brian Lilley linked an opinion column by Canadian leftist writer and fellow Toronto Sun columnist Warren Kinsella that made a series of serious accusations against the AfD and its leadership.
Among the accusations was a claim that the leadership of the party endorsed Canadian Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, which if accurate would be a violation of German law and an arrestable offence.
“Its party leaders have called Holocaust memorials ‘shameful.’ They have dismissed the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi regime as ‘bird shit.’ They have defended former Canadian Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, and promoted the notion that ‘not a single Jew’ died in the Nazi gas chambers,” Kinsella alleged.
While Kinsella did not source his claims, he appears to be referencing an incident in 2015 when a former board member of the AfD district association Weserbergland named Gunnar Baumgart wrote a Facebook post in defence of the Canadian Holocaust denier.
He subsequently resigned from the party under criminal investigation and his post was never endorsed by the party leadership or Ms Anderson personally.
Elsewhere in his article, Kinsella only mentioned one comment from Anderson, in which she allegedly stated that Muslim immigration has cost the German welfare state billions.
Kinsella, a long-time Liberal, has also spoken highly of the violent far-left extremist group Antifa, writing in 2017: “‘Antifa’ is short for anti-fascist. The only ones who should oppose antifa are fascists.”
Since being elected leader CPC leader Mr Poilievre has claimed to champion working people and take on the inflation he has blamed on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s policies.
However, on many socially conservative issues, such as abortion, which is legal until the moment of birth in Canada, or traditional marriage, Poilievre has been notably silent — other than stating last year he would not “re-open” the debate on abortion.
Poilievre has criticised some aspects of assisted suicide, known as Medical Assitance in Dying (MAiD) in Canada.
However, his party has not suggested proposing a ban on the practice, which accounted for 5 per cent of all deaths in Quebec and British Columbia in 2021.
The condemnation of Ms Andersson by the Tory leader comes after other high-profile members of the nominally conservative party have openly expressed woke views, such as MP Michelle Rempel Garner, who has begged for “forgiveness” for her “privilege.”
“I humble myself and ask forgiveness, and seek to make things right. I have privilege; I am cis/straight/white. But I am also a woman who works in a system dominated by white maleness,” Rempel Garner said.
Her comments were addressed to Amira Elghawaby, a board member of the Trudeau-funded leftist Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), who was named by Prime Minister Trudeau as Canada’s first Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia last month.
Elghawaby was a controversial pick for the position as she had previously claimed “the majority of Quebecers appear to be swayed not by the rule of law, but by anti-Muslim sentiment,” leading to protests from several Quebec politicians.
The Canadian Hate Network is also linked to Antifa, with a judge stating CAHN has previously assisted the violent extremist group.
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