HAPPY HOMECOMING
Federal NDP leader talks of national urban strategy, opioid crisis and opportunities
Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, right, poses for a selfie with River Edmonstone and Sean Connell Friday during his tour of the downtown core. Singh, who was raised in Windsor, proved to be more than just a snappy dresser, Anne Jarvis writes.
It’s true that Jagmeet Singh, new leader of the federal NDP, who grew up in Windsor, is a snappy dresser. He was hip in jeans, a down jacket, black turban and later a finely tailored sports coat as he toured Windsor on Friday with local NDP MPs.
It’s also true that Singh, the first visible minority to lead a federal political party in Canada, is very personable.
You can see why he connects with young people.
“Nice to meet you, man,” he told Imad Mohammad, co-owner of BB Branded on Ouellette Avenue, where he bought a Win City shirt with gold metallic letters. He did the man hug.
“Cool, cool,” he said, walking into Dr. Disc.
“Totally, totally,” he said when Windsor West MP Brian Masse gave him a record, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. He’s switching to vinyl.
He’s one up on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s selfies. He doesn’t snap a photo. He takes a video.
But Singh also made a lot of sense as he toured downtown and later the neighbourhood around the Ambassador Bridge and the site of the planned Gordie Howe International Bridge.
“One of the things I really believe in is a national urban strategy,” he said.
“How do we become better partners, the federal government and municipalities?”
Instead of “piecemeal” infrastructure projects, there should be a vision for building more livable cities and a strategy to match municipalities’ needs with federal money, he said.
“Instead of one-off projects, how does each project advance the vision for making the city more livable?” he asked.
Singh, who grew up on Villa Borghese, saw the high-paying factory jobs, then the collapse and now, he noted Friday, the resurgence.
The city’s downtown has an “incredible opportunity,” he said.
Rent is so high in the downtowns of many cities that a lot of people can’t open a new business.
But rent is so affordable here that entrepreneurs with new, innovative ideas can find a place to launch them.
One part of a livable city is “absolutely” cycling, said Singh, who rode his bike all over Toronto when he was an MPP.
He wants to “double down” on a private member’s bill by NDP MP Gord Johns for a national cycling strategy, he said during a stop at the Bike Hub.
“You know cycling makes cities more livable,” he said.
The best way to encourage people to cycle — “the evidence is clear” — is to make it safer, he said. The “gold standard,” he said, is separated bike lanes.
“The ultimate goal is to have as much protected cycle lanes as possible.”
Speaking about the impact of the opioid crisis on Windsor and cities across Canada, Singh said it should be treated like a health care crisis, not a crime.
“If we heard that 3,000 people were dying because of a Zika virus outbreak, people would be out there on the ground saving lives,” he said.
A former criminal defence lawyer, he saw people charged with drug possession as suffering from addiction, mental illness and poverty. Those are health and social issues, not criminal issues, he said. He’s calling for 80 per cent of the resources poured into chasing drug possession as a crime to be spent instead on rehabilitation.
Drug use and drug deaths have dropped in other countries that have done this, he said. “We can do that,” he said. It’s also “absolutely important,” Singh said, that when the federal government builds something like the new international bridge here, “there’s got to be investment that benefits the local folks in the community.
“We have a community,” he said referring to Sandwich, locked between the Ambassador Bridge’s new span and the Gordie Howe, “that’s been surrounded by massive infrastructure builds, but there has been no real benefit to the community.”
He praised Masse’s call for Sandwich to be involved in the creation of a community benefits fund, to begin spending money from the fund now instead of waiting for the bridge to be built and for annual funding for the community based on bridge traffic.
When Singh talked about Windsor during the leadership campaign, he talked about racism. He called Windsor “a small Canadian city with little diversity.”
On Friday, he called it his “hometown.” His visit, part of a cross-country tour, was billed as the “Coming Home Tour.”
He reminisced about Fast Eddy’s arcade and the Freedom Festival. And he acknowledged Windsor’s “incredible diversity” now, saying it represents the changing face of Canada.
But Singh, who doesn’t have a seat in the House of Commons, won’t seek it here. He’s eyeing Brampton East, which overlaps his former provincial riding of Bramalea-Gore-Malton.
It’s currently held by a Liberal, Raj Grewal, who is also Sikh. It makes the most sense.
Singh represented the area, and he could knock off a government member.
Singh will be in Windsor again Saturday and at a farm and a greenhouse in Kingsville.
People think he’s a city-slicker. But here’s something most don’t know: his family also lived on a 40-acre farm that grew soybeans and corn on Disputed Road in LaSalle.
One of the things I really believe in is a national urban strategy. How do we become better partners, the federal government and municipalities?