Regina man grills Trudeau on pipeline and steel tariffs at town hall meeting

First I must credit where credit is due. It’s generous of Trudeau to conduct these town hall meetings in the first place. It’s a true public forum that tests the Prime Minister’s ability to respond to the voiced concerns of real people.

Though he hasn’t gotten much better at answering questions directly, as the responses do tend to be a bit wordy and long-winded, it’s admirable to see a sitting Prime Minister do live Q & A’s, knowing full well that responding to questions on the fly is no easy task.

Trudeau has definitely fallen victim to off-the-cuff remarks that at the moment may have seemed like a great idea, but in retrospect would not have been said. A great example of this is the people-kind comment Trudeau made at a town hall prior, where he implied that instead of “mankind,” people should use the word “people-kind,” as it’s more “inclusive.”

At this particular town hall, one man had the chutzpah to go up and press Trudeau on his mishandling of the Kinder-Morgan pipeline

Trudeau points to the man in the crowd, awaiting his question. “You, with the ‘I Love Pipelines’ t-shirt, thank you sir.”

The audience has a brief chuckle and gives a light applause, seemingly already in support of the sentiment.

The man continues on. Proudly representing his province. He raises valid questions and concerns that the crowd around him seemingly agree with, based on their response. He continues...

On May 31, 2018, the United States announced tariffs on imports of certain steel and aluminum products from Canada at the rates of 25% and 10%, respectively.

In response, our government took into consideration feedback received from Canadians through over 1,000 submissions during public consultations, on July 1, 2018, they imposed countermeasures (surtaxes) against C$16.6 billion in imports of steel, aluminum, and other products from the U.S.

The man is referring to the infamous move by the Trudeau government to purchase the Kinder-Morgan pipeline for $4.5B. A move that shocked many, with few able to defend the purchase.

The crowd begins to applause in agreement. These types of decisions by the Trudeau government show to Canadians that Trudeau has little regard for how frivolously he spends our tax dollars

And along came the question that many in the area were surely thinking.

“You can legalize marijuana, but you can’t twin a pipeline?”

Canadians are tired of mismanagement from a government that more and more see as incompetent.

Here's how the Prime Minister answers:

“Thank you sir for your hard work in the steel industry. I know how important it is, the work that you do, the work that folks do here in Saskatchewan and Alberta and right across the country; In our oil industry, in our steel industry, in making sure that we are getting our resources to markets and that we are crowing as an economy.

So I recognized the challenges that these steel and aluminum tariffs represent to our economy, to your work, and that is why we are taking these steel and aluminum tariffs extraordinarily seriously. It's why we came in with countervailing tariffs, and thank you for your support of those, on American products which is creating pressure within the American system by governors of Kentucky amongst others, to put pressure on the president to actually move off of those steel and aluminum tariffs.

Your 1st question was indeed about the signing of the new NAFTA deal, and should we have not gone ahead with NAFTA because of the steel and aluminum tariffs… And that was certainly a question that we had to ask ourselves and that we reflected on because these tariffs are hurting our workers, are hurting our economy.

One of the things that we've done is make sure that we are supporting and putting measures in place to support companies like Evraz, but it's not just Regina, it's companies in Sault Ste. Marie, it's companies in Hamilton, it's aluminum companies in BC and in Quebec that are all being negatively impacted by these punitive American tariffs.

In every single conversation I've had with the president, I bring up the fact that these tariffs are not just hurting Canadian workers like yourself, and Canadian companies, they are also hurting American workers and American companies, and we're seeing increasing stories on that.

So, we're in a position where we have to reflect on, do we sign the new NAFTA with our largest and most important trading partner… And pledge to continue to look for moments to pressure the US to remove these steel and aluminum tariffs. Or do we walk away from a two billion dollar a day trading relationship that is hugely important for the Canadian economy?”

The rest of Trudeau’s answer can be found here:

(start time 1:20:05)