Dozens of anti-pipeline protesters marched through the streets of Montreal Saturday, trying to stop pipeline projects they say the federal parties will allow to move ahead.

“We have to block these projects. The parties are not going to do it for us,” said Chloe Houle-Johnson, spokesperson with the coalition of student groups that organized the protest.

The TransCanada Energy East pipeline is expected to ship 1.1 million barrels of oil a day and much of that oil will be bitumen from the oil sands in Alberta.

Enbridge has received approval from the National Energy Board to reverse the flow of Line 9B, an almost 40-year-old pipeline that will carry Alberta oil to refineries in Montreal.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says shipping bitumen through pipelines can be hazardous.

“First they have to ship toxic diluant, which is a fossil fuel condensate, which they add benzene and butane, that's the material that they stir in the solid bitumen to make it flow through a pipeline,” she said.

Enbridge says it has been shipping heavy oil from Alberta since 1968 without incident and they say “there is nothing new about transporting this form of crude oil - and after nearly half a century, there is no evidence that internal corrosion is caused by transporting oil from the Canadian oil sands.”

Protesters say approving pipelines will increase production of a carbon intensive form of petroleum.

“We're talking about pipelines that are going to increase greenhouse gas emissions globally. We’re going to be locked in to an expansion of the tar sands, if we allow these pipelines to go through,” said Anthony Garoufalis-Auger.

The Conservatives are in favour of the Energy East pipeline while the Liberals and NDP are asking for more consultation.

May says oil sands production cannot grow and the current bitumen production should be processed in Alberta to create jobs in Canada.

“Why are you trying to ship an unprocessed solid that comes out of the oil sands across the country to get to tankers to ship to other countries, where they'll have jobs in other countries refining the product there,” she said.

That wasn't the only demonstration involving an issue that's come up this election campaign. A march to stop deportations was also held in Montreal Saturday afternoon.

The protesters are against the deportation of Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic and in Canada. The coalition of migrants rights groups is also calling on the Canadian government to take in more refugees.

So far, it says the response to the refugee crisis in Europe has been weak and is causing harm.

The peaceful demonstration included a minute of silence for migrants who have died in their efforts to reach Europe.