And now for the full story on the Jagmeet Singh heckler incident
It’s the story that’s been read around North America and even shared by the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. It’s serving as a teachable moment for how public figures should deal with brazen racists. And one Canadian politician is being hailed a hero.
The only problem is, the story, as it’s been told, is a total mess and only half the truth.
A few days ago a video emerged of federal NDP leadership candidate Jagmeet Singh responding to a heckler at one of his campaign events in Brampton, Ontario.
A very animated woman gets up and starts shouting and rambling about sharia law and the Muslim Brotherhood, accusing Singh of being in cahoots with the extremist movement.
While the crowd shouts her down, Singh responds by repeatedly telling the woman she’s loved and included. He doesn’t offer her any fuel, so eventually she just goes away.
This clip alone proves Singh’s a master politician and, if he wins the leadership, will give Justin Trudeau a run for his money.
Reporters wrote a simple story about a prejudiced heckler and the man who took the high road to diffuse the situation. Columnists then jumped in opining about racism in Canada.
“Jagmeet Singh explains why he didn’t tell that heckler he’s Sikh, not Muslim”, a Huffington Post headline read.
“Singh is Sikh. ‘Sharia’ refers to Islam, a different faith,” the Globe & Mail headlined on their video of the incident.
This is where it all goes off the rails. Anyone who’s been following the NDP race — and this obviously includes Singh — would have immediately realized there’s a whole different layer to this tale.
The Liberal government in Quebec is currently working on a bill that bans niqabs from the public service. Jagmeet Singh is 100 per cent against it. However his rivals Niki Ashton and Guy Caron have had more cagey responses.
They’ve both spoken about respecting the Quebec legislature and its promotion of secular values, while also suggesting they’re not crazy about the bill.
Singh has called them out for trying to suck and blow at the same time. He’s got a point.
When I first watched the video, I guessed that Singh’s position on the ban was actually what this woman was raving about. And, sure enough, she later posted a video to Facebook confirming this was the case.
It tells us she had a particular policy dispute with Singh and wasn’t mistakenly launching an anti-Muslim tirade against him as an individual, which bursts a large part of the media narrative.
There’s a bigger question, though: The media act like they’re against any glimmer of intolerance, particularly when it comes to Islam.
Meanwhile, we’ve got a whole subset of NDP members who support a much broader niqab ban and leadership candidates enabling them. And yet the liberal media have practically left them all alone.