Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre spoke at length about catch and release laws and the opioid crisis during a large 'Canada First' rally Tuesday in Sault Ste. Marie – in support of local candidate Hugh Stevenson.
At least 1,000 people packed into The Machine Shop in the Canal District for the rally, causing some traffic headaches before and after the event. Organizers estimated the crowd was 'almost 2,000 people' but could not provide an exact count.
Rallygoers passed a number of protesters who were on the property to oppose the visit by Poilievre.
The crowd at Tuesday's event likely represents the largest political rally held in the Sault in recent memory.
National and local media outlets covered the rally, but neither Poilievre nor Stevenson took questions during the event. Poilievre has scheduled a press conference in the Sault for Wednesday morning.
Stevenson spoke first, reminding the crowd that he spent seven years as chief of police in the Sault after a 30-year career with the Ontario Provincial Police. He abruptly stepped down from the role as chief two days before the 2025 campaign kicked off on March 23.
"Do you know what that experience taught me? I've never seen things so bad in my seven years of policing.
"I've never seen so much violence and chaos on our streets. I've never seized so many guns and drugs nightly. And what's sad is, I've never seen so many lives lost tragically to overdoses," he said.
"I put the blame squarely at the feet of the Liberal Party. It wasn't this way before the Liberals came to power," he added, to cheers from the crowd.
Stevenson then introduced the Conservative leader's wife, Anaida Poilievre.
"We are at a crucial time where we must decide whether we're going to elect, for a fourth time, the same Liberal team that has left us with a weakened economy, rising crime, awful housing, and vulnerable in the face of the threat of Donald Trump – or are we going to elect the Conservative government to put Canada first for a change?" she asked, before introducing her husband as the next prime minister of Canada.
Poilievre spoke for about an hour, covering many subjects, including affordability, housing costs and tax rates, among others, and warned of the effects he said would occur if an industrial carbon tax was implemented under the Liberals.
"The Canadian steel making companies simply will not be able to compete with American and Chinese steelmakers who have no carbon tax at all. Both Trump and Carney want to attack Canadian steel — one with taxes and the other with carbon taxes. I want neither," Poilievre said.
The treatment of 50,000 people living with addiction and tougher penalties for drug dealers were additional campaign promises Poilievre shared with the crowd on Tuesday.
"We're only going to give the money to those organizations that have a track record of success. We will pay those organizations for keeping people off drugs. Pay for results, not for bureaucracy," he said.
Although Poilievre spoke about the opioid crisis and crime, he made no mention of intimate partner violence, despite the Conservative leader making a policy announcement promising tougher penalties on Friday in Trois-Rivières, Que.
Members of Angie's Angels — a group formed after the horrific mass murder in the Sault in October of 2023 — were in attendance at Tuesday's rally hoping to hear more from Poilievre on his campaign promise of tougher penalties for intimate partner violence offences.
Instead, the signs and a photo of murder victim Angie Sweeney were temporarily taken away from the trio and were not allowed to be displayed during the rally.
Stevenson was chief of police at the time of the mass murder, and rejected calls for him to resign in response to the way his police service handled a 911 call made by Angie the day before she was killed.
Instead, Stevenson put in place a project in which every intimate partner violence call made to the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service was followed up on.
Renee Buczel said she reached out to Stevenson's campaign on Friday, the same day Poilievre made the policy announcement on intimate partner violence, but she had not received a response by the time of the rally.
Not satisfied with seemingly being ignored by Stevenson and his staff, Buczel and fellow Angie's Angels members Lindsay Stewart and Angie's brother Brian Jr. were able to appeal to Poilievre directly, seconds before he boarded a chartered bus to leave the event. A party staffer then took down information from the group members.
On Monday, local Liberal incumbent Terry Sheehan was asked if his party's leader Mark Carney would be visiting Sault Ste. Marie during the campaign.
"He's always welcome," responded Sheehan.