Surprise! PM helps students move in
Everything’s peachy as Trudeau is swarmed on southern Ontario weekend tour
Most first-year university students rely on mom, dad, and possibly a helpful upper-year student or two to help them move into their residence halls.
Not Alex Gouveia. The soon-tobe nursing student got a hand from none other than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“I was already going to remember this day forever. And then all of the sudden the prime minister is moving me in,” said Gouveia, who hails from Sarnia, Ont. “It sure is a good sign.”
Trudeau — who carried a bin filled with Gouveia’s toiletries and school supplies to her residence room in McMaster’s McKay Hall — stopped by the Mac campus as part of a whirlwind two-day sweep through southern Ontario.
The PM’s stops in the Hamilton area Saturday included a visit to Niagara College to discuss its winemaking programs, move-in day at McMaster, and a visit to the Winona Peach Festival.
Mac students — already a loud and enthusiastic bunch during welcome week — swarmed the prime minister as he made his brief stopover at the university.
Trudeau, who was joined by Hamilton Liberal MPs Filomena Tassi and Bob Bratina, waved, shook hands and took selfies with students — most of whom had no idea that Trudeau planned to crash their move-in day.
“It’s a very exciting time in any year, when all the students arrive back — but to have a special guest, especially one who is so in touch with young people and their values and their aspirations — I think it’s very exciting for the students to see him,” said McMaster president Patrick Deane.
Trudeau received a similar enthusiastic welcome at the Winona Peach Festival, where he served up ice-cream sundaes and was again mobbed by an enthusiastic crowd. The prime minister spoke to the media in Niagara, but didn’t take questions at either stop in Hamilton.
Second-year McMaster student Sam Marchetti — who almost snagged a selfie with the prime minister but couldn’t click the camera button in time — says he’s a huge fan of Trudeau because he “talks about issues that really matter to young people.”