Trudeau faces down barrage of heckles

• 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.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave his strongest indication yet on Tuesday that he would ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The 12-nation Pacific Rim deal was reached during the federal election campaign last year, weeks before Trudeau took power. He has neither formally endorsed nor rejected it as his government consults on the accord. On Tuesday, however, he signalled Canada was unlikely to reject a deal that includes the U.S., Japan and Mexico. “It’s difficult to imagine a world where Canada would turn its back on three of its top five trading partners,” Trudeau said at a youth labour summit in Ottawa.