Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre are ‘fake patriots,’ Maxime Bernier tells Tucker Carlson

Unable to partake in the federal leaders’ debates this week, Maxime Bernier found a different medium to attack his opponents and push the People’s Party of Canada’s platform: The Tucker Carlson Show. In the roughly hour-long face-to-face interview posted Wednesday afternoon , the former Stephen Harper-era cabinet minister was equally critical of Liberal Leader Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, calling them both “fake patriots.” “They are using the fear of the tariffs and the economic situation in Canada to promote themselves with a fake patriotism,” he claimed at one point, lamenting how U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs became the focal point of the election. “The campaign is not Carney against Poilievre. No, both of them are fighting Trump and the tariffs.” The duo also spent considerable time talking about former prime minister Justin Trudeau, whom Bernier claims destroyed Canada “economically, socially and culturally,” and the PPC’s focus on ending mass immigration as the most important election issue.

It’s hard to overstate how dystopian and threatening Canada has become. An update from longtime Canadian government official Maxime Bernier.(0:00) Who Was Justin Trudeau Really Working For?(7:53) The Invasion of Canada(9:19) Pierre Poilievre Is a Fraud(13:25) The Attempts to… pic.twitter.com/1X4W5vIgWE— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 16, 2025

Here’s more of what they said. On Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre While most Canadians likely see the Liberal and Tory leaders as opposed on many issues of greatest importance to Canadians, Bernier was content to lump them into the same pot on many, including Trump and the U.S., the carbon tax and climate change, war in Ukraine and Gaza, government spending and taxation, immigration policies and the CSIS investigation into foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections. “The Chinese Communist Party was giving money to some candidates of Chinese origin,” Bernier said, referring to a National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) report that suggested some members of parliament were “semi-witting or witting” participants. “They said it, and we want to know the names of these people, but Poilievre and Carney, and Trudeau before that, they don’t know, ‘It’s a secret. We won’t tell you who these people are.’” A February report from the public inquiry on foreign interference led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue dismissed the notion of any “traitors” in parliament. At one point, Carlson asked why the leaders, and Trudeau, “clearly … really hate Canadians.” “What they like, it’s power,” he replied. Bernier took separate shots at the main party leaders, too. He referred to Carney as “the globallist-in-chief” for his association with the World Economic Forum and the United Nations. “For Canadians right now, it’s like a Trudeau 2.1. But he looks more competent because he was the governor of the Bank of Canada.” He said the former Bank of England governor is also getting a boost from mainstream media presenting his campaign in a more favourable way. As for Poilievre, whom Carlson referred to at one point as a “pretty sinister fraud,” Bernier said his former colleague and the party are “Conservative” in name only. He also criticized their use of slogans and focusing on Trump as an enemy of Canada, while not explaining how he’ll end the deficit. “They don’t want to do a campaign to help Canadians and put our country first. Now it’s all about, ‘Oh, the tariffs. We need to do counter tariffs,’” he said. One of the principal slogans of Poilievre’s campaign is “Canada first — for a change.” On Justin Trudeau The show’s cold open starts with Carlson asking who Trudeau was “working for.” “I can tell you, Tucker, he was not working for us, for Canadians,” Bernier replied, quickly citing the restrictions Ottawa put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bernier was arrested in July 2021 after appearing at a small anti-restriction rally in southern Manitoba. He pleaded not guilty but was eventually fined over $2,000. Bernier said he was “speaking about freedom” much the same as the Freedom Convoy participants were during their weeks-long protest in downtown Ottawa, which resulted in Trudeau’s government enacting the Emergencies Measures Act. “But at the end, we were successful, because a couple of months after that freedom convoy, all these authoritarian measures disappeared,” Bernier claimed. At a couple of points in the interview, Carlson tries to bait Bernier into talking about the Medical Assistance in Dying Act, suggesting Trudeau’s government was paying to kill “tens of thousands” of citizens and wondering why the former Liberal boss “is not in jail for destroying an entire nation.” At another point, he probes the PPC leader about whether he or anyone in the Canadian government believes Trudeau is the son of former Cuban President Fidel Castro, a myth that has long since been debunked. Bernier instead pivots to another topic, such as alleging Trudeau was also responsible for doubling the national debt during his 10 years in office, from $600 billion in 2015 to $1.2 trillion in 2025. He said Trudeau created “the perfect storm” by allowing “mass immigration” to Canada in tandem, resulting in a declining GDP. “That’s the legacy of Justin Trudeau,” he said. On immigration In fact, Bernier told Carlson he had hoped to make “mass immigration” the focal point of the election. He references the term more than a dozen times during their chat. “People don’t understand that last year in Canada, we had 1.3 million foreigners coming to our country. For a country of 40 million people, that is mass immigration.” Bernier said neither leader will address the topic during the campaign because both the Liberals and Conservatives are “pandering to these ethnic communities for votes” to secure more ridings and achieve a majority government. A PPC government, he said, would impose a moratorium on immigration to allow for Canada’s housing sector to catch up to the existing demand. “If you are the leader of a nation, your first responsibility is to work for your people and it’s immoral what they’re doing right now because they’re helping foreigners more than Canadians.”

• People's Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier aims to run in Manitoba byelection
• Poilievre says PPC leader Bernier no threat in Manitoba byelection

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