Poilievre says RCMP comments were directed at former commissioner

RCMP denies Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s accusation that it protected former PM Trudeau from criminal charges.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says his accusations of political interference by the RCMP during former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s tenure were directed at the national police service’s former commissioner, not the institution itself.

“I stand shoulder to shoulder with the brave men and women in uniform who put their lives on the line every day to protect and serve,” Poilievre wrote in a statement on Monday. “Today and every day, I thank them for their service.”

“My comments were directed to former RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki who has a lengthy track record of publicly documented scandals, deception and political interference to the benefit of the Liberal government,” Poilievre also wrote. “We called for her resignation. We stand by that call to this day.”

In an interview with the YouTube channel Northern Perspective last week, Poilievre accused the RCMP of shielding Trudeau from criminal charges.

During the interview, Poilievre said that “many of the scandals of the Trudeau era should have involved jail time,” and called the RCMP leadership “just despicable when it comes to enforcing laws against the Liberal government.”

The RCMP — including current commissioner Mike Duheme — pushed back against the allegations last week, saying there’s “no interference” in the organization.

At a news conference on Thursday night, Poilievre stood by his comments.

Then, late last week and over the weekend, the comments drew heavy criticism from political watchers, including former Conservative strategists.

A top aide to former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, for example, wrote in an op-ed in the Toronto Star that Poilievre’s statements demonstrated “recklessness” and “a leadership approach that remains rooted in grievance rather than governance.”

Current lawmakers from all of the other parties have also called on Poilievre to apologize.

Poilievre is still seemingly standing by his comments, but in a statement on Monday said they were directed at one person, not the RCMP as a whole.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Poilievre’s office pointed to controversies during both Lucki and Trudeau’s times in office — including the 2019 SNC-Lavalin Affair and Trudeau’s 2016 family vacation on the Aga Khan’s private island— to criticize how the RCMP, and Lucki specifically, handled those cases.

The former ethics commissioner found Trudeau did break the rules in both cases. But, in the case of SNC-Lavalin, the RCMP said there wasn’t enough evidence for a criminal offence, and when it comes to the nearly decade-ago vacation to the Aga Khan’s island, the RCMP said it couldn’t “productively pursue” a criminal investigation.

A spokesperson for Poilievre’s office also stated that “no one should be above the law,” and referenced testimony and statements by former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson Raybould during the SNC-Lavalin scandal as proof that the “RCMP leadership passively accepted Justin Trudeau withholding key witnesses and evidence from investigation.”

“It was and remains the Conservatives’ position that the former RCMP Commissioner was misleading Canadians and engaging in a cover-up for the government, which is why we called for her resignation on Oct. 21, 2022.”

Former Conservative cabinet minister says Poilievre ‘grossly imprecise’

Former Conservative cabinet minister Lisa Raitt, who served under former prime minister Stephen Harper, is among those within the party publicly criticizing Poilievre’s controversial RCMP remarks.

“The leader was grossly imprecise in his original comments,” Raitt said in a panel segment on CTV Power Play on Monday, adding “the danger of something like that is you end up putting offside people who vote for you.”

Raitt also questioned why Poilievre is “talking about Justin Trudeau.”

“I’m glad the leader came out and made a very good clarification. I think that’s appropriate, but I go back to the original stuff. Why are we talking about this?,” Raitt said.

“The voters of today, the kids who are just turning 18, and the ones who are up to age 30, they don’t remember.”

With files from CTV News’ Abigail Bimman