During a campaign stop in London, Ontario, Pierre Poilievre went to a local shawarma shop to make a purchase using cryptocurrency, later saying on social media that he wants to make Canada the blockchain capital of the world.
“We’re going to buy this shawarma with this Bitcoin. Are you ready,” Poilievre started.
“Hold on. I’m just creating your invoice,” a staff member responds.
Poilievre scans a QR code on the staff member’s phone, presses send, and poof. Payment received; transaction fee paid with a single Satoshi.
Speaking with Poilievre before the drop-in, Aly Hamam, the owner of the shawarma shop, said he invested in Bitcoin and blockchain tech at his store as a hedge against inflation, having noted the federal government was printing money like mad.
“We quickly realized that [printing more money] is something that was going to lead to inflation. Because, if you look at it from first principles, if you have more money chasing after the same amount of goods, it’s going to lead to higher prices,” Hamam said.
“So, we decided we had to act. We had to move to protect our own money from getting debased.”
In a press release, Poilievre elaborates on his cryptocurrency position, writing, “A Poilievre government would welcome this new, decentralized, bottom-up economy and allow people to take control of their money from bankers and politicians. It would expand choice and lower the costs of financial products, and create thousands of jobs for engineers, programmers, coders and other entrepreneurs.”
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He further states that he wants to work with provinces voluntarily “to align rules and definitions across jurisdictions to make it easy for blockchain companies to operate across Canadian jurisdictions at the same time without a cobweb of contradictory rules.”
Right now, Alberta remains the province most aligned with this vision, and Premier Kenney actively tweets out pro-crypto news and proposals while maintaining a more favourable regulatory landscape within the province.
