Pierre Poilevre, the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party in Canada, is a bitcoin enthusiast and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does not share the same views.
Criticism
Speaking on Monday in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, the Canadian prime minister directed criticism towards his political rival due to his ‘irresponsibility’ when it comes to crypto promotions.
Trudeau said that it is not responsible leadership to tell people to invest their savings in cryptocurrencies, which are highly volatile, in order to hedge against inflation.
He went on to say that anyone following that advice would have had their life savings wiped out.
Trudeau continued with his criticism on Twitter and called his rival’s support as a reckless and questionable economic idea.
Of course the comment did not hold well with a number of bitcoiners, including Dan Held, the former executive of Kraken.
Poilievre had been elected on Saturday as the next Conservative Party leader of Canada in a landslide victory, as he was able to get 68% of the party vote.
Jean Charest had been his runner-up and she was able to get only 16% of the votes.
The campaign
The campaign of the Conservative leader had largely been focused on reducing inflation, fiscal responsibility, particularly relating to increasing the money supply.
This stance is quite common in Bitcoin proponents because they tend to lean towards the pioneer crypto as a ‘hard alternative’, given that it has a fixed supply.
Since the beginning of his campaign, Poilievre had been open about his views concerning Bitcoin and he had even shown up on renowned Bitcoin podcasts.
Since the supply of Bitcoin will never be more than 21 million coins, it has developed a reputation of being ‘digital gold’ and is considered a long-term hedge against inflation.
Back in March, Poilievre said in a rally that the government were dragging down the Canadian dollar, so people should be able to use other money like bitcoin.
The same day, the MP had posted a donation link on Twitter and asked his supporters to get control back from their politicians and bankers and to make the country into the world’s blockchain capital.
The attacks
However, even though Bitcoin is considered ‘digital gold’, it has been moving with tech stocks for years, as has the rest of the crypto market.
2022 has seen inflation reach record highs and bitcoin has lost almost 70% of its value, after hitting a high of $69,000 last year in November.
Such a massive drop in its price has seen political opponents of Poilievre target him for his stance on Bitcoin.
Both liberal and conservative opponents have attacked him for supporting the protestors of the ‘Freedom Convoy’.
The protest had been organized by the group due to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate and had managed to raise $1 million in Bitcoin.
Trudeau said that it was not responsible to fight against vaccines that can save lives and this does not make for good leadership.
