High profile former union organizer Ken Pereira, who more recently has dabbled in conspiracy theories on YouTube, will run in the upcoming federal election under the flag of Maxime Bernier’s new People’s Party of Canada.
Pereira confirmed his candidacy on Monday and said an official announcement will be made on Tuesday in Quebec City.
The former construction union executive praised Bernier’s “courage,” call him “a career politician who took a chance on a new vision by leaving the Conservatives.”
Pereira said he shared the values of the People’s Party and wanted to defend the interests of Quebecers and Canadians, especially the middle class.
“Education is going nowhere. If you don’t send your children to private school or your friends and family to a private clinic, you’ve never been well served,” he said.
He accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of being out of touch with the middle class.
“Everyone is there for the middle class, but the results are different. Who represents the middle class in the parties? It’s rarely someone who comes from the middle class, it’s always an elite,” he said.
Pereira added that he would push for protection of whisteblowers. In 2013, he gained fame in the province with revelations to the Charbonneau Commission about corruption in the FTQ-Construction union and the people surrounding its former director Jocelyn Dupuis and president Jean Lavallee.
“Every person can make a difference,” said Pereira when asked about the PPC’s infancy. “Everyone told me I was going to be crushed and the truth came out.”
On his YouTube channel where he hosts a talk show, Pereira has regularly engaged in conspiracy theories, including that the 9/11 attacks were a "false flag" operation and the so-called 'Pizzagate' theory. Pereira has also accused former United States president Barack Obama of spying, colluding with Russia, being a communist and of loving terrorists.
Before leaving the Conservative Party and founding the PPC in September, Bernier has courted controversy with comments on Canada’s diversity, accusing Trudeau of promoting “extreme multiculturalism.”
- With files from CTV Montreal
