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That’s one way to beat the pre-Christmas parking rush.

Hamilton NDP MP Matthew Green is keeping silent after photos emerged of his orange-and-white campaign vehicle parked illegally at Limeridge Mall on Dec. 21.

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The van — a right-hand-drive Japanese Subaru Sambar ‘Kei’ truck modified to look like a Volkswagen microbus — was spotted by a Toronto Sun reader parked on the end-of-row hash marks at the Hamilton mall during the busy last-weekend-before-Christmas shopping rush.

The van sports numerous decals featuring Green’s name, social media handles and website URLs, and frequently serves as a setting for live social media broadcasts, or selfies with colleagues and supporters.

Photo by Submitted

John Hlohinec, who came across the dodgy parking job, told theSun it rubbed him the wrong way see the attempt to circumvent the holiday crowds vying for scarce parking spots.

Hlohinec says he waited more than 30 minutes for Green to return.

Photo by Twitter/@MatthewGreenNDP

“I went over to him and said, ‘Good morning, Mr. Green. Why are you parking in a no parking zone?'”

Green, he claims, instantly went on the defensive — asking if he was a retired police officer or security guard, and said if he wasn’t prepared to ask him questions regarding his constituency, he should “stop picking on him.”

“He said he was in a hurry and didn’t have time to talk to me,” Hlohinec added.

Green then entered the van and — “without scraping the frost-covered windows,” Hlohinec said — drove away.

Both Hlohinec and his son-in-law Mike Ault reached out to Green through his constituency office and via social media seeking an explanation but got no reply.

The Sun’s inquiries to Green on Thursday likewise went unanswered.

Green served on Hamilton city council from 2014 to 2018, choosing not to seek re-election and making a successful bid to replace retiring MP and former federal NDP deputy leader David Christopherson.

Green was no stranger to headlines during his term on council.

In 2016, he was involved in a high-profile racial profiling complaint against a Hamilton police officer in which he claimed he was carded while waiting for a bus.