Poilievre kicking off the summer with a campaign-style RV tour of Quebec – MASHAHER

With the House of Commons adjourned for the summer, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is taking his political message on the road in a campaign-style RV trip around Quebec.

Poilievre will visit a number of Quebec ridings over the next few weeks in an RV that features a photo of himself and his family along with a “Common Sense” slogan.

Poilievre told Radio-Canada that the tour is about “listening to Quebecers” and talking to them about cost-of-living issues.

“Politicians and the federal government don’t care about Quebecers now,” he said in French.

“The centralist and inflationist government of Justin Trudeau costs too much. I want to lower those costs for Quebecers and share my common sense plan.”

Conservatives have enjoyed a strong lead in national polls recently, but surveys released this week by Abacus and Angus Reid show the Tories trailing the Bloc Québécois in Quebec.

The objective of the RV tour is to send a “strong signal” that the Conservatives have Quebec’s interests “at heart,” Poilievre’s Quebec lieutenant Pierre Paul-Hus told the Canadian Press in a French interview.

“The image that people currently have of Pierre Poilievre is the guy who fights in the House of Commons. It’s the image that is on TV that people see,” Paul-Hus said. “But the man, the human who shakes hands, who chats with you, every time someone meets him and talks to him, they say, ‘Wow, that’s not how I saw him.'”

Quebec Conservative MPs have been using their time in question period to accuse the Bloc of propping up the Liberal government. But the Conservatives also appear to be going after Liberal ridings in the province.

Poilievre held a rally in the Montreal riding of Mount Royal on Wednesday night, where he introduced Neil Oberman as the Conservative candidate in the next election.

Oberman, a lawyer for more than 20 years, recently represented students who filed an injunction request against the McGill pro-Palestinian encampment.

The lawyer will try to win the seat away from Anthony Housefather, who has represented Mount Royal since 2015. The riding is a Liberal stronghold, held by the party since 1940.

Both the Abacus and Angus Reid surveys released this week show the Tories have a 20-point lead over the Liberals nationwide.

Some Liberals have acknowledged publicly the tough position the party is in as MPs return to their ridings for the summer.

“We’re swimming into the tide. It’s tough,” P.E.I. MP Sean Casey told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday.

“It’s frustrating when you’re swimming into the tide, but that’s a function of politics, that’s life. I’m not going to work any less.”

When asked Wednesday if there is anything the Liberals could do to turn their polling fortunes around, Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan said “there’s no magic formula.”

“Just work harder and just make sure you get the word out on the work that you are doing,” he said.