Angus heads to Singh’s backyard in attempt to win support

NDP leadership candidate Charlie Angus is working to shore up support from Muslim community leaders, including some who have expressed views that run decidedly counter to party orthodoxy.

Angus is headed to Brampton and Mississauga, Ont., this weekend — rival Jagmeet Singh’s home base — to speak at a local Islamic centre and to meet with the Iranian Canadian Congress and the Canadian Arab Federation.

The move appears to be an attempt to prove that Singh doesn’t have a lock on new Canadian, suburban voters. At a recent debate in Saskatoon, Singh claimed that he could “connect with new Canadians in ways that others on this stage simply cannot.”

Angus says any NDP leader must be able to reach out to diverse communities.

In Mississauga, Angus will meet with Mustafa Khattab, an imam who made headlines for comments he made to Edmonton students in 2012, when he compared homosexuality to cancer.

“Someone who is homosexual is like someone who has diabetes or someone who has cancer or AIDS,” he said at the time.

Khattab told the CBC in 2016 that he regretted the comments and his understanding of homosexuality had changed.

Angus is also planning to announce endorsements from three Muslim community activists from the Greater Toronto Area — Farina Siddiqui, Feras Marish and Maliha Khan.

Siddiqui and Marish were both vocal opponents of Ontario’s new sex-ed curriculum, which puts them at odds with the provincial NDP that supported the reform.