Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre picked up on Bill C-278, an act to prevent the imposition by the federal government of vaccination mandates for employment and travel, and accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of ignoring health experts for the sake of his political gain.

“He had the temerity to go on television about three months ago and claim that he had never forced anyone to get vaccinated,” Poilievre said. “He claims that it should be a matter of personal choice. He wanted us all to forget the way he divided and insulted and name called millions of people right across this country. Patriotic, law-abiding, decent people.”

Poilievre further accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of “exploiting” unvaccinated Canadians for political gain.

“Let us remember that the Prime Minister originally said that the vaccines would be a personal choice. Then he did a poll showing that it would be popular to target a small minority of people who chose not to be vaccinated. He flip-flopped and said he would then make it mandatory. Three days later, he called an election, and attempted to exploit that political moment in order to regain power.”

Poilievre further said Trudeau didn’t even follow public health experts at the time of implementing the vaccine mandate.

“Even his own human resources team at the treasury board had put out guidelines suggesting that it would be a matter of personal choice, not mandatory imposition.”