Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got an earful during a photo op from a cash-strapped steelworker who told the leader his policies have left his family scratching to make ends meet.

Footage of the tense exchange in Sault Ste. Marie, a city in Ontario, which was obtained by CTV News, went viral. The unidentified worker spurned Trudeau’s offer of doughnuts to complain about high taxes, medical bills and giveaways to people he deemed “lazy.”

“The 25% tariffs we just brought in is going to help you out … that’s going to keep your job,” Trudeau told the man.

“What about the 40% taxes I am paying? And I don’t have a doctor,” the employee of Algoma Steel shot back.

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Trudeau responded by saying that a multimillion-dollar investment from the Canadian government meant the man would have a job “for many years to come.” The man responded by saying that he expected Trudeau to be voted out.

“That’s what elections are for,” said the Liberal Party leader, who stayed calm and collected during the exchange. “I look forward to everyone exercising the right to vote. … We are going to invest in you and your job.”

“I don’t believe you for a second,” the steelworker shot back.

The man also mentioned that he felt unemployed Canadians got better access to affordable health care than he did after Trudeau referenced an initiative to help hundreds of thousands of Canadians get dental care.

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Arlyn McAdorey/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Probably like my neighbor who doesn’t go to work because she’s lazy?” the steelworker asked.

“You know what? Most Canadians try to stick up for each other, and that’s what we’ve got to keep doing,” Trudeau responded before wishing the man good luck. At the end, the laborer appeared to refuse a handshake from Trudeau.

The next federal election in Canada is set to take place on Oct. 20, 2025. Trudeau’s government has been scrutinized amid a cost-of-living crisis affecting the country, though Trudeau has remained optimistic.

“Inflation came down last month, beating out expectations,” the prime minister wrote in a Facebook post on July 17. “But, until Canadians can feel that relief in their wallets, at the grocery store, and on their mortgages, the job’s not done.”

Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, center, is shown during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, not pictured, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, on Sept. 22, 2023. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Fox News Digital reached out to Trudeau’s office for comment.

Taiwan People’s Party leader Ko Wen-je freed after court finds insufficient evidence to justify his detention.

A court in Taiwan has ordered the release of a former mayor and presidential candidate who was arrested over his alleged role in a corruption scandal, citing insufficient evidence for his detention.

Taipei District Court on Monday ruled that Ko Wen-je, a former mayor of Taipei and the leader of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), should go free after finding that prosecutors had failed to make the case for his detention.

The court said prosecutors had not met the standard of there being a “high possibility” Ko had committed a crime.

“It cannot be concluded that the defendant… knowingly violated the law,” the court said in its ruling.

Ko was arrested on Saturday as part of a probe into alleged corruption in the redevelopment of the Core Pacific City shopping centre in the Taiwanese capital.

Ko, who came third in January’s presidential election, told reporters outside court that there was “no evidence” of his involvement in the real estate scandal.

A surgeon by training, Ko entered politics in 2014 when he successfully ran for the mayorship of Taipei as an independent candidate.

Re-elected as mayor of Taipei in 2018, he founded the TPP the following year as a third force to challenge the dominance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and China-leaning Kuomintang (KMT).

Under the TPP banner, Ko received about one-quarter of the vote in the last presidential election, which was won by the DPP’s William Lai Ching-te.

While the TPP has only eight legislators in Taiwan’s 113-seat parliament, the party has gained outsized influence as both the DPP and KMT lack a ruling majority.

Ko, who draws much of his support from young people, is widely seen as a contender for the next election in 2028, although his popularity has been dented by a separate campaign funds scandal.

On Thursday, Ko said he would take a three-month leave of absence from the TPP leadership to take responsibility for the misreporting of campaign money and the use of election subsidies to set up a personal office space.