NDP Leader Singh plants flag in Burnaby

VANCOUVER — Federal New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh will run in an upcoming byelection in British Columbia.

A crowd cheered and clapped as Singh formally announced his nomination for the riding of Burnaby South at an event Saturday.

Singh told them he wants to have a strategy that will solve the housing crisis in Vancouver, reduce the cost of prescription medications and fight climate change by focusing on clean energy.

“What’s at stake is we’ve got a Liberal government that is not doing what people need,” he said.

“Instead of investing and dealing with the national housing crisis, they spent $4.5 billion on buying a pipeline,” Singh said as the crowd chanted, “shame.”

He promised that an NDP government would invest in building affordable housing, co-operatives and non-market housing, as well as provide income support to people.

Singh blamed the Liberals and Conservatives for the current state of the country, saying the two parties don’t get and don’t care what people are going through.

“We have a government that is not willing to do what people need. And we had a Conservative government that put us in this position in the first place.”

He added that people are counting on the NDP, and the party can’t let them down.

Singh announced his intention to run in Burnaby South in early August.

The riding was held by former New Democrat MP Kennedy Stewart, who gave it up on Friday to run for mayor of Vancouver.

The 39-year-old Ontario-born Singh, who doesn’t live in the riding, is opposed to the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline and has called for a more thorough environmental review of the project.

The government, he has repeatedly said, needs to invest in clean energy jobs.

The federal government’s approval of the pipeline was recently overturned in court.

The pipeline runs from Edmonton to Burnaby and has met with strong opposition in the Vancouver area. Singh said the court ruling supported what Canadians have long maintained about the environment, then added “We have to stop taking First Nations to court.”

If Singh wins the byelection, he has said he will also run in the riding in the general election in 2019. The prime minister must call a byelection within the next six months, but Singh, who noted that he and his wife are currently looking for an apartment in Burnaby, wants the date set “as quickly as possible.”

Singh represented the Toronto-area riding of Bramalea-Gore-Malton in Ontario’s legislature from 2011 to 2017, and served as the provincial NDP’s deputy leader before replacing Tom Mulcair as federal leader last fall.

B.C. deputy speaker, Burnaby-Edmonds NDP MLA Raj Chouhan, said he thinks Singh has a “very good chance” of winning the riding in spite of being from Ontario because he has a high profile, which will give the issues that people care about a voice.

“What we have seen under the Harper government and even under Mr. Scheer... all they talk about is how to make it easy and more profitable for the top one per cent.”

Singh, he suggested, is in touch with the grassroots and understands issues affecting the common man.