Environment Minister Catherine McKenna talks climate change in Winnipeg

Huddled around tables and even on the floor, hundreds of people gathered with Canada's Environment Minister on Wednesday night in Winnipeg to discuss a national climate strategy.

Catherine McKenna held a town hall meeting at the Canad Inns Fort Garry to discuss climate change and what role the federal government needs to take.

More than 300 people attended the event which meant an overflow into the hallways where McKenna joined some of them on the floor to answer questions and listen to concerns surrounding environment issues that not only affect Manitobans but people across the country and around the world.

"We want to hear from you today but we also want to encourage as many people as possible, and that's everyone from experts down to kids, to actually submit your ideas to our interactive website," McKenna said, addressing the everyone before they broke off into groups.

The town hall had participants work through questions on four themes with topics ranging from pipelines to active transportation and recycling.

Clayton Thomas-Muller, with the global climate movement called 350.org, said he came out to talk to the minister about oil sands and share what his group plans on doing..

"We will put pressure on the Liberal Government to not expand tar sands infrastructure, to not expand the tar sands themselves and certainly to expand in more public spaces like this so people can provide input into the national climate strategy," he said.

He said it's important Canada is a real climate leader on the international scale and locally.

Sadie-Phoenix Lavoie said as an Indigenous person, youth, and student, she felt it was important to contribute her voice to the conversation.

"As young people, as grassroots people, we have been working on solutions for a long time and here's our opportunity to present a lot of the things that we have been working on," she said.

Winnipeg South Member of Parliament Terry Duguid also attended the meeting.