Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau divided Canadians by his speech and actions against the Freedom Convoy, despite Justice Paul Rouleau’s conclusion that the use of the Emergencies Act to clear convoy protests was justifiable.

In his press conference in Calgary on Feb. 17, Poilievre didn’t refute Rouleau’s finding, but accused the governing Liberals of using division tactics rather than focusing on important national issues.

“After eight years of Justin Trudeau, everything feels broken. But instead of fixing those things, or at least taking responsibility for breaking them, the Prime Minister seeks to divide and distract. So he thinks that if you’re afraid of your neighbour, you’ll forget that you can’t pay your rent; if you’re afraid of a trucker, you might forget that you’re hungry, and take your eyes off of the guy who caused the problem in the first place,” Poilievre said.

Poilievre referenced comments by Liberal MP Joël Lightbound who had said on Feb. 8, 2022, that his government had made a decision to use pandemic policy “to wedge, to divide” at the time of the 2021 election.

He also noted that former Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau had said in January that vaccine mandates shouldn’t have been used as a political wedge, and quoted Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland as saying the pandemic was a “political opportunity.” Freeland made the comment on April 7, 2022, in the context of introducing a national child-care program.

“I really believe COVID has created a window of political opportunity and maybe an epiphany on the importance of early learning and child care,” she said.

Poilievre says the politicization led a lot of people to become “helpless and so desperate” that they took part in the protests in Ottawa in January and February of 2022.

During the press conference, Poilievre was asked by a CBC reporter if he accepted Justice Rouleau’s findings and if he regretted “endorsing the Freedom Convoy.”

In his response, Poilievre repeated his criticism of CBC’s President and CEO, Catherine Taid, who had said Poilievre has been stoking president of the government-funded broadcaster.

“Your question was typical of CBC bias. Again, you forgot to mention what the report said, which is more of an effort should have been made by government leaders at all levels during the protest to acknowledge that the majority of protesters were exercising their fundamental democratic rights,” Poilievre said.

“What I said before, during, and after the protest was that I condemn anyone who behaves badly, breaks laws, or blockades critical infrastructure, while standing on the side of the hard-working people who have suffered so much under eight years of Justin Trudeau, and were desperately trying to have their voices heard against an insulting and divisive prime minister.”

In his press conference on Feb. 17, Trudeau said that the use of the Emergencies Act to clear convoy protests was a “last resort,” while noting that commissioner Rouleau found that the government had met the very high threshold to use the act.

“Our job as a government is always to keep people safe. And invoking the emergencies Act was the necessary thing to do to remove the threat and to protect people,” Trudeau said.

“The emergencies Act provided us with more tools to safely bring the illegal blockades and occupations to an end.”