JAGMEET SINGH: His life, politics and the juicy tidbits about the NDP leader
How he built a political game plan with life lessons from his troubled early years
Third in a series of five articles looking at the life and politics of the leaders of the major federal political parties seeking your vote in the Oct. 21 election.
WHO
• Jagmeet Singh, New Democratic Party leader.
• Born Jan. 2, 1979, in Scarborough, Ont.
• Jagmeet is pronounced Jugmeet.
• His name means “friend of the earth,” and is a combination of his parents’ names, Harmeet and Jagtaran.
• Lived in St. John’s during his early childhood.
• The family moved to Scarborough, Ont., when he was seven.
• Grew up in Scarborough and Windsor, Ont.
• Criminal defence lawyer.
• Speaks fluent English, French and Punjabi.
• Married entrepreneur Gurkiran Kaur in February 2018.
THE RESUME:
• Bachelor of science from Western University, London, Ont.
• Law degree from Osgoode Law School, Toronto.
• Criminal defence lawyer in Brampton, Ont.
• Served as NDP member in the Ontario legislature 2011-14.
• Elected leader of the federal NDP in October 2018, winning on the first ballot with 53.8 per cent of the votes.
• Elected MP for Burnaby South in a Feb. 25, 2019, byelection.
THE CONTEXT
During his NDP leadership campaign in 2017, Jagmeet Singh’s slogan was “Love and Courage.”
At a rally in Brampton in September, those words were used to diffuse a situation involving an angry heckler, who approached him as he was speaking, clapped in his face and accused him of supporting sharia law.
CTV News reported, “Rather than fighting fire with fire, Singh, who is Sikh, responded by letting the heckler shout before telling her that the crowd at the Brampton, Ont., event would not be intimidated by hate.”
“We don’t want hatred to ruin a positive event. So, let’s show people how we treat people with love,” Singh said as he encouraged the audience to applaud.
As the heckler continued her tirade, Singh addressed her directly, saying, “We welcome you. We love you. We support you … we believe in your rights.”
The crowd chanted “love and courage” and the woman eventually left.
At the NDP national convention in British Columbia in November 2017, Singh publicly declared Canadian drug laws should reflect that drug addiction is a social justice issue, not a criminal justice matter.
He said addiction is rooted in mental health and poverty.
“To me, poverty, mental health, and addictions don’t sound like criminal justice problems,” he said. “They sound to me like a social justice problem.”
He called on the Canadian government to decriminalize all personal possession offences.
JUICY TIDBITS
Before 2019, many news sources reporting on Singh mentioned that while in university he supported the family when his father became ill.
In his April 2019 autobiography, Singh offered up the harsher facts.
In “Love and Courage,” he revealed how a once-affluent family was torn apart and was nearly destroyed by his father’s alcoholism.
The situation at home became so unhealthy that when Singh was in university, he became the guardian of his younger brother, moving him to live with him in London, Ont., and enrolling him in high school there.
Alcohol had cost his father his medical licence as a psychiatrist. Singh writes that his father became angry and volatile when he drank.
Eventually, Singh moved his father out of the family home and into an apartment.
“The hardest thing to cope with was when someone that you love is hurting the family, hurting you, and to understand that it’s an illness, it’s not a choice,” Singh told the National Post. “A kind person that did so much harm is hard to understand. It was hard to come to grips with.”
Today, Singh’s father is sober, has regained his medical licence and is again practicing as a psychiatrist.
2019 POLICIES
In a Facebook Live video on Sept. 17, Jagmeet Singh announced his intention to make phone bills cheaper for Canadians. He claimed telecom companies are “ripping Canadians off.”
In an interview with CTV News, he said Canadians need access to affordable data. His party’s plan would see a price cap until the communications industry becomes more competitive.
On the subject of future energy and jobs, in a 2017 interview with the National Observer, Singh said some sectors won’t be able to create long-lasting jobs. He said producing oil from the tar sands of Alberta is costly, making it harder for those companies to compete with other oil-producing nations.
He said Canada has to spend on electricity.
“We need to make investments in building a grid that will allow us to move into a future that’s going to rely more on electricity. … I’ve proposed some ideas, but some folks have talked about using the capacity of a federal government to build projects east-west that connect hydroelectric energy. … We’re headed toward a society that will rely more and more on sustainable energy as opposed to non-sustainable energy, and then we should make investments that take us down that path. Those are jobs of the future.”
Electricity is one of the solutions in the climate change plan spelled out in the NDP party platform.
The NDP proposes a plan to see Canada powered with net carbon-free electricity by 2030 and moving to 100 per cent non-emitting electricity by 2050.
“To drive this progress, we will establish a new Canadian climate bank … (to) help boost investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency and low-carbon technology across the country.”
The NDP says the climate bank will also support made-incanada manufacturing of renewable energy components and technologies and help expand Canada’s clean energy industry.
BOTTOM-LINE ME
Jagmeet Singh is no newbie to politics. He has eight years of experience as a politician, at provincial and federal levels.
However, this is his first run as party leader in a federal election.
He’s part of a generation of young leaders, in the under-40 age bracket, seeking the support of Canadians in 2019.
His life story is one of success in spite of challenges.
Issues around the environment and climate change are a major part of the NDP agenda.
The party’s platform also includes commitments to improve the social welfare of Canadians with proposals for pharmacare, better access to public services, and improvements to water, health and education for indigenous communities.