LETTER FROM MONTREAL
Perched on a stage set up in the Egyptian restaurant Tahini’s, in the city of London, Ontario, a man, chawarma in one hand, cell phone in the other, makes the article: “Aly understood what the experts don’t understand, when you print money, it creates inflation. So he invested all his savings in bitcoin. How much was bitcoin worth at the start of 2020? »he asks the happy owner of the restaurant: “10,000 Canadian dollars” ; ” and today ? »he relaunches it: “$57,000”Aly plumps to applause. “While the Canadian dollar lost 7% of its value in the same period, continues the presenter, me, today, I buy my chicken shawarma in bitcoins: let’s give people back control of their money and their lives by giving them the freedom to choose their own currency. »
The skit is not taken from a stand-up sponsored by a cryptocurrency promoter. The juggler on the stage is a politician campaigning: Pierre Poilièvre, 42, candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada (the election will take place on September 10), with a very “sixties” look à la Don Draper, king advertising in the television series madmenand the unprecedented martingale in the discourse of the Canadian right: the promotion of bitcoin.
“We need to take control of money away from bankers and politicians and give it back to the people. Pierre Poilièvre, candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada
This former minister of the Conservative government of Stephen Harper (2006-2015), the youngest member, at 25, of the House of Commons during his first election in 2004, found in the recent inflationary outbreak – 5.7% in February last – an opportunity to sing the praises of those currencies that are beyond the control of central banks. “We must take control of money away from bankers and politicians and give it back to the people”he explains in his program, affirming that the Canadian Liberal Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is responsible for this inflation, renamed “Justinflation”and that the “Canadians can avoid it by opting for cryptocurrencies”. It doesn’t matter that current inflation is less linked to the use of printing money than to the liquidity injected to deal with the Covid-19 crisis, the rapid recovery of the economy and the rise in prices energy, the candidate repeats on all the stands “that the Bank of Canada must be deprived of its power to print money and devalue the currency”.
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