Canada’s ‘Mad Max’ stokes anti-vax rage – and could help Justin Trudeau in coming election
- Ex-cabinet minister Maxime Bernier’s party is gaining popularity amid Covid-19 fatigue, but may end up snatching votes from the PM’s Conservative rivals
- Supporters of Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada have heckled Trudeau at campaign stops, with one local official throwing gravel at the prime minister
Maxime Bernier, a former cabinet minister nicknamed “Mad Max”, is channelling anger against mandatory vaccines into surprising support for his populist People’s Party of Canada (PPC) in the country’s tight election race.
His efforts may end up helping the man he calls a “fascist psychopath”: Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Bernier, 58, who quit the main opposition Conservatives in 2018 after losing a leadership race, was previously most famous for leaving classified documents in a former girlfriend’s apartment, leading to his resignation as foreign minister in 2008.
Now, amid fatigue over successive coronavirus lockdowns and simmering anger over mandatory masking and vaccine rules, his right-wing party is rising in polls.
The PPC, which Bernier founded, has 9 per cent support nationally, according to an EKOS poll, up from 1.6 per cent in the 2019 election. That is higher than the Green Party though well below Trudeau’s Liberals and the Conservatives, who are hovering around 30 per cent.