Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took Brampton City Hall by storm Monday, Feb. 27 as he met with Mayor Linda Jeffrey, greeted residents and municipal staff and sat down with local politicians to briefly talk about some of the issues affecting Canada’s ninth largest city.

“It’s been far too long since a prime minister has come to meet with you all in Brampton,” said Trudeau, who took a private meeting with the mayor and local MPs.

The PM spent about an hour in Brampton before heading to south Peel to meet with Mississauga’s mayor Bonnie Crombie and other officials.

Trudeau swept through the front doors of city hall, accompanied by the mayor and a large security detail, where he was greeted with loud cheers and applause from the regiment of staffers and members of the public gathered in the front atrium. 7161797

The media also gathered in droves, although the PM didn’t take any questions. Resident Christine Wilson told the Guardian if she had the chance, she would ask Trudeau what he's doing to help low-income residents.

“It is a pleasure to be sitting down to talk infrastructure, jobs of the future for the citizens of Brampton, the GTA and Ontario,” said Trudeau from a sixth floor boardroom, where he sat across from the mayor and flanked by Liberal MPs Kamal Khera, Ruby Sahota, Raj Grewal and Sonia Sidhu.

Jeffrey described the meeting as “positive and productive” and said the conversation mainly focused on the university, job creation and infrastructure improvements.

Pushing 600,000 people, Brampton faces critically important issues for the future such as how to shape its first university, what to do about crippling traffic and how to breathe life into a stagnant downtown. Brampton also boasts one of the largest unemployment rates in the Greater Toronto Area.

Jeffrey said during the brief encounter, Trudeau heard about Brampton’s plans to completely overhaul its downtown flood protection channel.

The Downtown Etobicoke Creek Revitalization Project, commonly known as the Riverwalk, would mitigate the threat of flooding, and be a major catalyst for downtown revitalization, but the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to complete the program has been a significant obstacle for the city.