Politics of Exclusion: Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s Voting Track Record 2004-2024

JUMP TO PIERRE POILIEVRE’S VOTING RECORD // JUMP TO SHAREABLE GRAPHICS

Pierre Poilievre speaks with conviction. “We are Conservatives,” he says. “We don’t believe in big fat government programs. We don’t believe in giving money.”

At first, that might sound like ordinary political talk. But these words are more than slogans. They are signals. They draw lines between who is deserving of support, and who is not. Between who counts, and who is left behind.

When someone seeking to lead this country repeatedly tells us what they don’t believe in, we must ask: what values are left? What kind of future is being offered and for whom?

This is not about fiscal restraint. It’s about stripping away the systems that many of us rely on to survive and thrive. It’s about making life harder for people navigating poverty, housing precarity, chronic illness, disability, single parenthood, systemic racism, colonial legacies, gender-based violence. And then telling them it’s their fault.

Poilievre received a government pension at the age of 31. Later, he tried to target other MPs over their pensions in a public stunt. The reality? His own pension is roughly three times larger, projected to be around $230,000 annually by the time he turns 65. That number will only grow if he becomes Prime Minister. Soon after securing his pension, he voted to raise the retirement age for others to 67. He speaks of independence and “the value of hard work,” but only applies those values to communities who’ve been denied fair access to opportunities for generations. In 2008, he questioned whether survivors of residential schools should receive compensation, arguing instead that Indigenous peoples just need to “work harder.” In 2023, he addressed a group that claimed the harms of residential schools were a “myth.” 

This is not just a political position. It’s an erasure of truth. It’s a refusal to reckon with Canada’s history and its ongoing impacts.

And it’s part of a larger pattern. When Bernie Sanders tells people to “Listen not to what they say, watch what they do,” that applies here, too. So let’s take a look at Pierre’s record, shall we?

Pierre’s Record

Poilievre has consistently voted against supports that help people meet basic needs: affordable housing, childcare, dental care, medication, contraceptives, and food programs in schools. He’s opposed expanding the pension plan, raising the minimum wage, strengthening workers’ rights, and protecting our environment.

When communities needed pandemic relief, he called these supports wasteful. “We don’t believe in giving money,” he said. But that’s not true. He believes in directing money to those who already have wealth – real estate developers, grocery magnates, long-term care corporations. His inner circle includes lobbyists for billion-dollar companies and donors who host him in mansions across the country.

So the question isn’t whether government spending is good or bad. The question is: who does he believe is worth investing in?

He has built a platform by demonizing trans and non-binary people, erasing gender diversity, and promoting anti-2SLGBTQIA+ rhetoric. He’s given space to those who oppose reproductive justice, and opened the door to legislation that would control our bodies. He supported banning niqabs. He posed with “Straight Pride” t-shirts during Pride. He talks of “radical gender ideology” as if our right to exist safely is up for debate,. while concluding that “wokeism” has “reinserted and invented” racism in Canada. 

These aren’t accidental moments. They are deliberate strategies of exclusion. They distract, divide, and dehumanize.

Pierre Poilievre is not just rejecting government programs – he is rejecting the idea of collective care. He is rejecting the principle that society has a responsibility to ensure that every person, no matter their income, gender, race, ability, or background, can live with dignity and possibility.

And yet, he presents himself as the voice of the “common person.” But the people whose lives are most affected by his policies – the single mom trying to find childcare, the young person navigating systemic racism, the worker forced to choose between rent and medication, the trans teen seeking safety – are not included in his version of Canada. And when asked directly to clarify which social programs he will eliminate, he consistently refuses to answer the question.

This is not about left versus right. This is about whose lives are made harder by policy decisions that treat care as a luxury. It’s about whether we believe that being housed, fed, affirmed, and safe are rights or rewards that only some are allowed to earn.

Canada is being asked to choose.

Do we want a future that punishes people for needing support?
Or one that uplifts us all?

Do we want a society built on scarcity, shame, and suspicion?
Or one grounded in care, justice, and interdependence?

Pierre Poilievre is betting on the politics of resentment. But there is another way. One that sees every person as inherently worthy. One that understands that the measure of a country is not how it treats the most powerful, but how it supports those facing the greatest barriers.

This is a time to be bold. To reject false choices. To organize, to vote, to imagine.

When someone tells you, “we don’t believe in giving money,” ask yourself: Who is “we”? Who is being left out? And what kind of Canada are we willing to fight for?

Because the future is not written yet. And it doesn’t belong to Pierre Poilievre. It belongs to all of us.

Pierre’s Voting Record & Political Career

List format is below the chart // Shareable graphics below list

VOTED AGAINST:

• Bill C-31, An Act respecting cost of living relief measures related to dental care and rental housing
• Affordable housing and addressing Canada’s housing crisis (2006, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2018 and 2019)
• Bill C-48 Raising the federal minimum wage (2004)
• Bill C-2 Tax cuts for the working middle class (2015)
• Bill C-64 Free diabetes medication
• Bill C-19 Tax-free first home savings account (2022)
• e-4516 Free Contraceptives
• $10-a-day child care
• Dental care
• The National School Food Program
• The Canada Child Benefit
• Pharmacare
• Voted 8 times against federal anti-scab legislation (2004-2023)
• In 20 years as a MP, he has voted against protecting the environment 400 times
• Voted against expansion of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), the most significant improvement to Canada’s public pension system in 50 years (2016)
• Voted against a 10% increase to the Old Age Security pension for those aged 75 and above (2021)
• Voted against taxing the rich by opposing raising the capital gains inclusion rates (2024)
• Subsidized daycare
• Same-sex marriage
• Stronger gun control

WHAT HE’S FOR:

• Voted for $43.5 billion cut to healthcare funding 
• Voted for $196.1 billion cut to funds for surgery and emergency room wait times
• As Housing Minister in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, he allowed 800,000 affordable rental units to be sold off to corporate landlords and developers.
• Voted to increase the age of eligibility for Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) from 65 to 67 (2012)
• Pierre promoted allowing employers to abandon the pension they promised to workers 
• Supported hiking the retirement age from 65-67
• Supported C-377 and C-525 bills, which tried to bury unions
• Supported eliminating dependable defined benefits pensions and replacing them with inferior plans that take all the risk off banks and bosses and put it on the backs of workers, replace with Pooled Registered Pension Plan (PRPP) employer participation and contributions are voluntary
• Defined marriage as a union between ‘one man and one women t the exclusion of all others” (2005) 
• Said Indigenous Peoples needed to learn the value of hard work more than they needed compensation for residential schools (2008) – “are we really getting value for all of this money” value of hard work, independence and self-reliance
• Worked to bring American-style anti-union laws to Canada (2013)
• Made it harder for Canadians to vote (2014) by introducing the Fair Election Act
• Promoted a ‘niqab ban’ (2015) “not going to succumb to political correctness in order to accommodate a practice that it is not aligned with Canadian values”
• Followed the American far-right playbook to use anti 2sLGBTQI+ language (2023) – radical gender ideology on kids – woke gender ideology imposed on our children – radical gender ideology – religion of gender ideology, proponents of radical gender ideology. 
• Called child care a ‘slush fund,’ and tried to cut programs that support the middle class (2021)
• Encouraged Canadians to ‘opt-out on inflation’ with volatile crypto-currencies (2022) 
• Used misogynist YouTube tags to court far-right supporters (2022) – men going their own way: term coined by misogynistic men who try to cut women completely out of their lives
• Pushed an anti-vaccine agenda (2023)
• Committed to free votes, allowing his MP to bring forward anti-abortion legislation (2023)  endorsed by an anti-choice group. Interview with Jordan Peterson was sponsored by an anti-choice group.
• Supported illegal convoy blockades (2023) calling them “cheerful, patriotic, optimistic Canadians” 
• Delivered a speech to a group that claimed it was a “myth” that residential schools robbed Indigenous children of their childhood (2023)
• Visited and courted far-right extremist groups such as Diagolon (2022-2024)
• Turned his back on Ukraine (2024) – voted against support 
• Said he’d use the notwithstanding clause, overriding Canadian’s rights (2024)
• Talked down pandemic supports that helped millions of Canadians pay their bills during the crisis (2020) “we are conservatives we don’t believe in that”, we “don’t believe in big fat government programs”
• Posed with someone wearing a ‘straight pride’ shirt during Pride season (2023)
• Used the term ‘tar baby’ in the House of Commons (2009)
• Terminated the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, cutting billions of dollars from housing construction and making it harder for municipalities to build more homes.
• In January 2025, Poilievre stated he is only aware of two genders and expressed that the government should not involve itself in questions of gender identity.
• Has publicly stated that he will defund the CBC 
• Big donors are real estate investors: Richard Abboud, the CEO of an REIT called Forum Asset Management is listed as donating $7,875 to the federal Conservative party since 2017, according to Elections Canada records.
• Poilievre’s chief strategist is a lobbyist for Galen Weston and Loblaws
• His deputy leader lobbied to protect a for-profit long-term care company that saw record profits and high fatalities during the pandemic
• His caucus chair is the chairman of a major grocery chain

SHARABLES