Ottawa:

In an unusual move, the leader of Canada’s main opposition party was ejected from the House of Commons on Tuesday after he called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “a wacko”, the latest clash between two men set to fight an election next year.

The official opposition right-of-center Conservatives are well ahead in the polls and leader Pierre Poilievre regularly attacks the Liberal government for a carbon tax he says is spiking inflation.

“When will we put an end to this wacko policy by this wacko prime minister?” he asked Trudeau in the House of Commons elected lower chamber.

Speaker Greg Fergus, a Liberal, told Poilievre the comment was both unparliamentary and unacceptable and asked him four times to withdraw it. Poilievre declined on each occasion, saying instead he would use the word extremist or radical.

Fergus told Poilievre he was disregarding the speaker’s authority and said: “I order to you to withdraw from the House … for the remainder of this day’s sitting.”

Poilievre and most of his legislators then left.

Trudeau has a testy relationship with Poilievre, who he accuses of being an extremist and a supporter of the Make America Great Again movement of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trudeau spoke to reporters earlier on Tuesday and accused Poilievre of spending time with far right groups.

“That is not responsible leadership. That is dangerous for democracy, it’s dangerous for Canadians,” he said.

Ejections from the House are relatively rare. The speaker’s office was not immediately available to comment on the last time a leader of the official opposition had been booted out.

The next election must be held by late October 2025 and surveys of public opinion indicate the Conservatives would win a large majority over the center-left Liberals, who have been in power since November 2015.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Ottawa:

Taking a jibe at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for his allegations on India for its involvement in the alleged killing of the Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Canada’s opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has said that he should come out clean with all the facts in order to make judgements.

In a media address on Tuesday, Mr Poilievre said, “I think the prime minister needs to come clean with all the facts. We need to know all the evidence possible so that Canadians can make judgments on that.

Mr Poilievre’s remarks came in response to a media query that asked what more should be done as an Indian diplomat was expelled by Canada.

“The prime minister hasn’t provided any facts. He provided a statement. And I will just emphasize that he didn’t tell me any more in private than he told Canadians in public. So we want to see more information,” Mr Poilievre said.

He stated that the allegations could be found untrue or incredible if more information is not provided.

“We need to have the evidence that drew that allowed the prime minister to come to the conclusions he made yesterday,” he said.

“I would have to have more evidence to make a judgment on that. I do find it interesting that he knew about vast foreign interference by Beijing for many years, at the same time as Beijing had kept two Canadian citizens hostage. And he said nothing. And he did nothing. Just very interesting that that was the approach he took in that case,” he added.

A day ago, Mr Trudeau accused the Indian government of the fatal shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. He claimed that his country’s national security officials had reasons to believe that “agents of the Indian government” carried out the killing of the Canadian citizen, who also served as the president of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara.

Najjar, who was wanted in India, was gunned down outside a Gurdwara, in a parking area in Canada’s Surrey, British Columbia on June 18.

Hailing from Bharsinghpur village in Punjab’s Jalandhar, Nijjar was based in Surrey and had been declared “absconder” by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

India has, however, rejected the allegations by Canadian PM Trudeau regarding the government’s involvement in the fatal shooting of Nijjar. In a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) termed the allegations ‘absurd ‘and ‘motivated’.

“We have seen and reject the statement of the Canadian Prime Minister in their Parliament, as also the statement by their Foreign Minister,” said the MEA in an official statement.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)