Screaming protesters, one of whom was dressed as a giant pink vagina, confronted Kitchener Centre MP Stephen Woodworth at the University of Waterloo on Wednesday.
Woodworth was at the school as a guest of UW Students for Life, invited to speak about issues relating to the motion he put before the House of Commons in 2011, asking for a committee to be formed to examine the question of when life begins.
Critics of the motion say Woodworth is attempting to reopen the debate over abortion in Canada.
Organizers of Wednesday’s event tell CTV they had heard rumours protestors would should up at the event, but didn’t expect the level of disruption that ended up occurring.
Still, campus police were notified of the event and the potential for trouble.
That trouble arrived when the protesters -- including one in costume as a vagina – showed up and confronted Woodworth.
“Who do you think you are to be imposing your bigotry … your views on society?” one of them said during the confrontation, which was captured on video and posted to Youtube.
After about 10 minutes, campus police told everyone involved to pack up and head home, with Woodworth’s speech effectively cancelled.
Woodworth says he thinks the protesters were putting their personal opinions ahead of his freedom of expression.
“I think these are extremists for whom a single issue preoccupies them, and they just put it above every democratic value including the value of free speech and the idea of respectful dialogue,” he told CTV.
Officials with the University of Waterloo declined to speak on camera, but in a statement, called the incident “an attack on our presence as a place where issues are explored, discussed and debated.”
Organizers of the event say there was a question and answer session with Woodworth slated for the end of the night, and the protesters would have been able to express their opinions then without shutting down the entire event.
