Trudeau Pooh-poohs Rival’s Crypto Enthusiasm

Canada’s Prime Minister of seven years, Justin Trudeau, took pot shots Monday at newly elected conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre over his crypto views

article-image

Source: Shutterstock

share

key takeaways

  • Opposition leader Poilievre’s leadership on crypto is irresponsible Trudeau said
  • Individuals who’ve followed the advice of Poilivere would have seen their life savings destroyed, the Prime Minister said

Canada’s Prime Minister has fired a shot across the bow of freshly elected opposition leader Pierre Poilievre, labeling his views on cryptocurrencies as irresponsible, and calling his leadership into question.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a gathered crowd at the Liberal caucus retreat on Monday, individuals could not hope to dodge macro headwinds by diverting their savings towards crypto.

“Telling people they can opt out of inflation by investing their savings in volatile cryptocurrencies is not responsible leadership,” the Prime Minister said. “By the way, anyone who followed that advice would have seen their life savings destroyed.”

Pierre Poilievre; Source: Shutterstock

Inflation, including other macroeconomic factors such as low wage growth and tailwind pandemic supply shortages, have all but forced individuals to seek alternative investments in a desperate attempt to stay ahead of multiple crises, including Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Trudeau’s comments come as little surprise, given the recent protests earlier in the year involving Canadian truckers who sought to circumvent capital controls placed on them by their government for refusing to adhere to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Bitcoin and other cryptos proved to be a useful tool to sidestep controversial financial sanctions, imposed by the Trudeau administration, which saw hundreds of thousands of dollars in BTC reach protestors’ pockets.

Canada’s Prime Minister later reiterated his stance toward crypto, while also taking a shot at Poilievre’s COVID-19 politics.

Loading Tweet..

Poilievre, who won a major landslide victory as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada on Saturday, has continued to publicly advocate for crypto and bitcoin.

Viewed as a means to “decentralize” the economy, reduce government involvement and pare back central bankers, Poilievre said in March if elected to lead the country, he would normalize crypto.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Nillion_DeSci_Report_Template.png

Research

Nillion’s Monad Integration is poised to catalyze the next phase of DeSci’s evolution by eliminating key privacy bottlenecks. This synergy allows researchers, institutions, and DAOs to exchange sensitive data and insights securely while managing governance and payments onchain.

article-image

Sponsored

DePIN powers a global network for AI computes, storage, streaming, and IPFS pinning service, enabling AI to be developed and deployed in a decentralized environment with greater transparency, control, and ownership

article-image

Bitcoin has broken its previous price record of $109,026 set on Jan. 19, 2025

article-image

The SEC filed the suit on Tuesday night, alleging that some Unicoin executives made “false and misleading statements” and violated securities laws

article-image

VanEck’s Pranav Kanade told Blockworks that it doesn’t plan to launch a similar fund for other ecosystems at this time

article-image

What the history of global reserve currencies says about crypto’s future

article-image

A memecoin community delivered on a brick-and-mortar pop-up store