Trudeau faces down barrage of heckles

OTTAWA • Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was heckled, harangued and hectored for 30 minutes Tuesday by an angry group of young people at a Canadian Labour Congress conference.

Trudeau, who had been invited by the CLC to speak at a session on “young workers,” gave back as good as he got.

The minute he started speaking, about 25 people in the crowd of 300 stood, then turned their backs on him. Others shouted protests about the Trans-Pacific Partnership while still others accused him of breaking promises to First Nations.

Trudeau, wearing a tie but with his shirt sleeves rolled up, paused amid the bedlam and then, when it quieted down a bit, said he had come in good faith for a dialogue with these young people — at the CLC, “young worker” is anyone under the age of 35 — then accused those of turning their backs or trying to shout him down of being disrespectful.

“Sir, if you won’t turn and face me when I answer, then I will not answer,” he said politely but firmly at one point.

The PM then gave the floor to one man who had hollered particularly loudly.

But it seems Trudeau was not the object of everyone’s ire.

One angry man, who said he was from Chatham, Ont., demanded of Trudeau: “What are you going to do about Kathleen?” as in Kathleen Wynne, the Ontario premier and a Liberal like Trudeau. The Chatham man said high electricity prices in his province were hurting workers.

Trudeau said something about division of powers, which prompted more hollering, including one heckler who yelled, “Sound bites won’t do it.”

Last week, while Trudeau was visiting Hamilton, Ont., a woman threw pumpkin seeds at him and shouted, “Keep your promises!”

Tuesday in Ottawa, Joey Dunphy, a member of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and the Madawaska Maliseet First Nation, wore a placard that read “Keep Your Promise.”

He said he was worried Trudeau was breaking promises to First Nations and on how he would deal with public-sector unions.

Many at the conference were public-sector employees, including Lauren Bart, 30, a Sarnia-based young workers’ representative for PSAC.

She said her friends and fellow union members were upset, among other things, about screw-ups with a new federal payroll system, Phoenix, and with what they see as bad faith in bargaining new collective agreements.

“We haven’t seen the change,” she said before Trudeau arrived.

Once the prime minister was there, he was asked, “When the hell are we gonna get paid? Why are (you) sticking with the Conservative mandate? I’m so confused.”

Trudeau won modest applause at the end of the event when he was asked about child care.

Erin McAlister of New Brunswick, who described herself as a young mother and a young worker, wanted to know what the federal government was doing about affordable, accessible child care.

“Different provinces have different approaches,” Trudeau said. “So a one-size-fitsall approach by Ottawa is not going to work.”

He then reminded the crowd about his government’s Canada Child Benefit which, provides more than the previous government’s combination of benefits and tax breaks for most families.

By the end of the session, the prime minister and his detractors appeared to have come to a standoff. He left with about one-third of the crowd giving him a standing ovation; about one-third standing or sitting silent and stony-faced; and the rest applauding politely.