Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre on Feb. 24 criticized a visiting European politician, both calling her views “hateful” and “vile.”
“Consistently, we see Conservative parliamentarians and people who should know better associating themselves with folks responsible for a particularly vile level of rhetoric and hatred,” Trudeau said during a press conference in Toronto.
Trudeau was commenting on the visit to Canada of Christine Anderson, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Alternative for Germany, a nationalist conservative party.
While in Canada this month, she met with Conservative MPs Dean Allison, Colin Carrie, and Leslyn Lewis. Anderson also met with people who took part in convoy protests against COVID-19 mandates last year.
The prime minister didn’t provide details on which views of Anderson he was referring to, but several Liberal MPs have described Anderson as holding “far right views,” and pointed to her comments on immigration of Muslims to Europe.
Anderson’s party is critical of mass immigration to the continent and calls for an increase in birth rates instead.
Anderson tweeted on Feb. 23 “Close the borders! Protect Europe!” in reaction to the news that one million asylum applications were filed in the European Union in 2022.
In a May 2021 tweet, Anderson complained about a million more Muslims landing in Germany, saying they incur billions in cost to the welfare state.
The Epoch Times contacted Anderson and her tour organizers for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
Poilievre also criticized Anderson and said his MPs were “not aware” of the MEP’s views and regret meeting with her.
“Christine Anderson’s views are vile and have no place in our politics,” he said in a statement provided by his spokesperson. “Frankly, it would be better if Anderson never visited Canada in the first place. She and her racist, hateful views are not welcome here.”
The MPs who met with Anderson offered a statement saying they were “not aware of the views or associations of her and her political party.”
“We do not share or endorse her views and strongly condemn any views that are racist or hateful,” the statement said.
PPC Leader Maxime Bernier, who met with Anderson in Montreal this week, called her “legendary.”
“She was more effective opposing Trudeau’s tyrannical policies from Germany during the pandemic than our lame ‘opposition’ in the House of Commons!” he tweeted.
The MEP was a vocal supporter of the Freedom Convoy last year, and criticized Trudeau for the police crackdown on the protesters when he visited the European Parliament in March 2022
“A Prime Minister, who openly admires the Chinese ‘basic dictatorship,’ who tramples on fundamental rights by persecuting and criminalizing 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 said.
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Noé Chartier