Protesters gather outside Trudeau town hall

Small group upset at pipeline support and sale of military vehicles

A dozen protesters descended on McMaster University’s campus, sharing messages on foreign policy and the environment with those waiting to hear from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Members from the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War and the Hamilton 350 Committee stood across the road from the David Braley Athletic Centre on Wednesday, speaking into a megaphone and handing out leaflets to attendees waiting to file into Burridge Gym for Trudeau’s town hall — the second stop on a national tour.

“We’re urging them to question the prime minister about the issues that we’re concerned about,” said Don McLean, co-ordinator of the Hamilton 350 coalition.

He said that includes the prime minister’s decision to approve Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline in British Columbia and Enbridge’s Line 3, between Alberta and Wisconsin.

“He can talk about reducing emissions in Canada, closing coalfired plants and so on. Those are useful things to do, but they’re far outweighed by the impacts of the emissions from the fuel that we are exporting through these pipelines,” McLean said.

The Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War took issue with the federal government’s $15-billion armed military vehicle deal with Saudi Arabia. They also wanted Trudeau to clarify Canada’s role at an upcoming summit on North Korea being held in Vancouver Jan. 16.

“On the Saudi arms deal, we’d like him to say, ‘Yeah, we made a mistake. All we’ve done is enabled Saudi Arabia to bomb Yemen and it’s resulted in war crimes and crimes against humanity,’” said group spokesperson Ken Stone.

Both groups said they sent people into the town hall to ask questions, but it didn’t appear their representatives were chosen.

Protesters greeted Trudeau at his first town hall in Halifax over the deportation of a Somalian refugee. Trudeau is set to be in London, Ont. Thursday for a cabinet meeting and a town hall at Western University.