Not sorry for calling MP racist: Jagmeet Singh
OTTAWA/MONTREAL: Jagmeet Singh, the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP), has refused to apologise for calling an MP racist in Parliament, saying that doing so would be the same as apologising for standing up against systemic racism, it was reported.
The comment on Thursday came a day after speaker Anthony Rota kicked Singh, a turbaned Sikh who is the first visible minority to lead a major national Canadian political party, out of the House of Commons or the lower chamber of the bicameral Parliament for calling Bloc Quebecois MP Alain Therrien a racist, CBC News reported.
Speaking during a show on CBC Radio on Thursday, Singh said he made the remark after Therrien was the only MP who could be heard audibly objecting to an NDP motion for the House to acknowledge that systemic racism exists within the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), support a review of the force’s budget, call on the police force to release all of its use-offorce reports, and demand a review of how police interact with the public.
“We’re in a moment where people have taken to the streets in the thousands across Canada in communities small and large. It’s been really special to see, even in small communities, people saying, ‘You know what? Black lives do matter. Indigenous lives matter’,” he told the show’s host.
“It would be akin to saying I’m sorry for fighting systemic racism now. And I can’t say that I’m sorry for fighting it,” the NDP leader added.
TRUDEAU COMES OUT IN SUPPORT
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday stood behind Singh. “It is disappointing that the Bloc Quebecois continues to refuse to accept that systemic discrimination, systemic racism exists within our country, in every part of our country and in all our institutions,” Trudeau said during a press conference.
“There are conversations that have to happen if we want to move forward as a country,” he said, claiming it was not his place to criticise a minority’s expression of a “lived reality” of racism.