Front Burner - The underdog: A profile of NDP leader Jagmeet Singh

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

When Jagmeet Singh became the leader of the NDP in 2017, he was the first person of colour to lead a major Canadian political party. There was a great deal of excitement around Singh, who is known for his ability to communicate genuinely and effectively - as demonstrated last week in the aftermath of Justin Trudeau’s brownface controversy. But the NDP leader has also been criticized for being ill-prepared for the job.Today, as part of our federal election profile series, Front Burner digs into the life and political career of Jagmeet Singh with the CBC’s Hannah Thibedeau.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Before NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was competing for the country's top job, or became the first person of colour to lead a major national political party, he probably caught your attention with this video.

Let's show people how we would treat someone with love. We welcome you. We welcome you. We welcome you. We love you. That's Jagmeet Singh responding to a heckler at a meet and greet in Brampton in 2017. That video made Singh a celebrity. Fast forward to this current election campaign, and Singh is again being recognized for his response to a racist incident. This time to photos of Justin Trudeau in brown face and black face. So seeing this image is going to be hard for a lot of people. It's going to bring up a lot of pain. It's going to bring up a lot of hurt. Please reach out to your loved ones.

Please reach out to people who are suffering in silence right now. As much as there's been praise, there's also been plenty of criticism around him being ill-prepared for the job of a national leader. Today, as part of our federal election profile series, we'll get to know Jagmeet Singh. The CBC's Hannah Thibodeau is here to help us do that. She's been following his story for years. This is Frontburner. Hi, Hannah. Hi.

Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. You're back from the campaign trail. You're back in Ottawa. Just for a couple of weeks. Okay. Okay, good. And then what?

Do you go back out? I go back out with the Liberals, and then I end with NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. So I kind of miss being out on the campaign trail. You get used to it. Good. Well, I mean, it sounds like you'll be back out very soon. I look forward to it. But let's talk about Jagmeet today. That's why we're here.

And I want to start with what happened last week. So I know that you were on the campaign trail with Jagmeet Singh when the first photo of Justin Trudeau in brownface surfaced. And as people may remember, Jagmeet spoke two times that night. And the second time was really emotional. There's so many people in this country that believe in taking care of one another. I know it's hard to believe right now, but there are. Tell me what was happening behind the scenes. Yeah, let me tell you why he did two responses to those photos.

So it was at a town hall. It was a regular town hall. There were about 100 people crammed into the room. And it was a really diverse crowd in that room, too. And that's when the Time magazine story broke. Singh hadn't seen the photo when reporters asked for his reaction. The reporter that asked the question made sure to mention that the prime minister's office had confirmed that Trudeau was wearing blackface in a photo. And it was back in

2001 before he was prime minister before he was a politician. I'm wondering what you think about this. And the response from Singh you could see that he was emotional about. I'm wondering what you think about this. And the response from Singh, you could see that he was emotional about it. There was almost a gasp in the room from the people there and Singh took a deep breath. He thought about it for a few seconds. Well, it's troubling. I mean, it's really, it's insulting. Anytime we hear examples of brownface or blackfacing, it's really, it's making a mockery of someone for what they live and what the relived experiences are. I think he needs to answer for it.

And the room agreed, applauding the leader. So as Trudeau then held his press conference on the plane. I shouldn't have done that. I should have known better, but I didn't. And I'm really sorry. We are on a bus. We were told that Singh would speak again. So Singh watched Justin Trudeau and his response in his hotel room.

He made some calls to some people. And one of those calls was the reason he came back in front of a camera. And yeah, it was like... And was it one of the calls to his friend? Yes. He sort of referenced that in the speech. When I responded earlier, I hadn't seen the image itself. And seeing the image, it jarred me.

And I wasn't sure if I wanted to come out and give a statement, but I got a message from a friend. And we don't know what that friend said to him exactly but we do know he addressed it and he got extremely emotional in front of the camera. You could see that he was upset, his eyes were watering but also that conversation with someone who he didn't want to identify, didn't want to go into great detail about it. We assume that person was bullied, that the image affected that person, and that person was unable to fight back in their own experience. Right, right. And Doug, we talked about this.

I faced a lot of racism in my life, and I can be honest with you, I fought back when I faced racism. I fought back with my fists. But there's a lot of people that weren't able to do that. One of my friends told me how he wasn't able to do that. And he wanted to speak to all of them. I want to talk to all the kids out there, all the folks who live this and now are grown up

and are still feeling the pain of racism. I want you to know that you might feel like giving up on Canada. You might feel like giving up on yourselves. I want you to know that you have value, you have worth, and you are loved. And I don't want you to give up on Canada, and please don't give up on yourselves. He was later praised on how he handled it. Yeah, it was just one of those moments.

You know, it really reminded me of that moment with the heckler back in 2017, that moment that we talked about in the intro. He's really calm. He's very classy. You know, growing up as a brown-skinned, turban-bearded man that I faced things like this before. It's not a problem. We can deal with it. Let's go back in time.

What were the expectations of him at that point? I think those expectations were pretty high of him because people, when they see him in a room, want to listen to him, want to learn more about him. But it doesn't translate sometimes through a television set. Why do you think that is? I think there's this barrier. I think, you know, even with us on TV, you have to push harder in order to get that message across for people to know who you are.

And I think that was part of his problem at first, too, is that he couldn't push that forward. But on the campaign, you know, you see that he knows how to deal with and manage difficult situations, too. We were talking about the heckler. And that almost seems like when he addresses these people, he's taking a page from Michelle Obama's playbook. No, our motto is when they go low, we go high. And then even on the campaign, Jamie, there was an event in Montreal where there was a heckler that disrupted that. And Singh pipes up and says, let me give you a hug for a second. Come here, brother. Brother, come here.

You know, you're disrupting this. And he goes up and he does give a hug, disarming the guy. And you can see the guy in the video going, saying, oh, good hug, good hug. He seriously said good hug. He did. It's not the best idea. We've got all these young people here. Hey, hey, I saw, I saw. Listen, we've got all these young people here.

He did go back to a little bit of protesting, but you could tell that it totally disarms him. Yeah. And he handles these situations by remaining calm. He handles them with class. And this is his brand, though, Love and Courage. Right, the title of his book. His book, yeah. So he is that charismatic person.

He's very telegenic. And after that incident with the heckler earlier on, too, many thought he could potentially compete with Justin Trudeau's celebrity. In particular, you know, the shine was kind of wearing off Trudeau's fresh face image. And Singh was potentially seen as the guy who could win the hearts of voters on the left, those progressive voters. Since we're talking about his image right now, another thing I find pretty interesting about him is that he's incredibly well-dressed, right? But interestingly, this isn't just about dressing well for him, right?

It's about something more than that. Yeah, absolutely. And this was something that his dad taught him. He said, if you want to be taken seriously, you have to dress better than the other person, kind of like dress for the job you want, not for the one you have. It's important for him to look sharp, often wearing three-piece suits. He calls it his social armor. He says there's a lot of stereotypes about a man with a beard and a turban. So he feels this is a way to disarm them and potentially stop them from having preconceived notions about him. And so that I could overcome that by showing, listen, I'm ready. I'm ready for the role. I'm

ready for the part. I dress the part. But then you'll hear the words I have to say in my ideas, my values. It's interesting to think about how strategic that is or sort of deliberate. Yeah, absolutely. strategic that is, or sort of deliberate. Yeah, absolutely. Singh has talked a lot. You mentioned before Love and Courage, the title of his book. And, you know, he has talked a lot about his own upbringing and how it shaped his politics, particularly in this book.

And tell me, what was it like for him growing up? Yeah, Singh was extremely forthcoming in his memoir that you were talking about there, Love and Courage, about his family, about him, about the struggles they faced. And they faced many. So Jagmeet's parents, in fact, gave him, his brother and sister, anglicized names, which you may not know. So Jagmeet's real name on his birth certificate is Jimmy. That was to help him fit in better at school. However, at the age of eight, Singh decided he wanted to use the name Jugmeet and he would stop cutting his hair.

So he writes in his book about kids bullying him, taunting him, asking him if he was dirty because he had brown skin. It was really confusing as a kid because I thought I'm the same person that I was just, you know, last year in grade two. And in grade three, all of a sudden, I started getting bullied for the way I looked. That's one of the things. And yes, he did fight back at times. I didn't give in, but it was a bit crushing, like to feel like every day going to school was a gamble.

Would I get picked on today? Would I get into a fight? Would someone attack me? But Singh also wrote about his dad dealing with alcoholism. And in fact, he talks about this issue frequently at rallies. He tells the crowd about how he once visited his father. You know, he wasn't living with the family. He was estranged.

He was living alone. The house was a mess that he was in. And Singh says he remembers how he had to carry his dad, who had lost a lot of weight weight in order to bathe him. But it was in that moment, seeing him so frail and so ill and had hurt himself so much, that I really believed that there is no other way to describe this than an illness. No one would choose this for themselves. So his dad lost his job.

He had private health care that, you know, they put him in rehab. It didn't work. But in the end, it was because of publicly funded health care that his dad was able to get help and to get better. So as a leader, you hear him speaking a lot, saying this publicly funded care is something he says has to continue, has to be available, and available when it's needed. And this is a message he uses quite frequently at the rallies.

It should not matter on their salary. It should not matter their job. They should be able to have the access to care they need, everyone in our country. But there's also, and this is really sensitive, that Singh talks about allegations of being sexually abused as a 10-year-old boy by his taekwondo instructor. My way of trying to push ahead was to say to myself,

something happened. It's something that I don't know how to deal with. So let's just not think about it. He says in the book, it took him years to talk about it because he was ashamed. He felt guilty. He didn't want his parents to feel like they were to blame. But he realized at a point he wanted to send the message to others who may have experienced something like this, that it's not their fault. One of the things that was really important to me was a dear friend told me that it wasn't my fault. And that was a really special moment because I knew it wasn't, but I didn't, I hadn't heard anyone say it to me. In fact he didn't even tell his dad about this until the book was about to come out because it was in the book. Wow I didn't know that. Yeah so he you

can tell he and his family that's just some of the examples have faced many personal struggles defied those odds and you can see Singh continues to express that he's going to do that again on the campaign trail. We have an exciting opportunity over the next 40 days. We are going to bring a hopeful message to Canadians that we can build the country of our dreams. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

This is going to sound interesting. You say this, i'm going to say this as your new leader we talked about all this hype around him in 2017 but you know the truth is is that momentum and it didn't really continue and i want to go through some of the hurdles or missteps that he encountered after he won the leadership bid in 2017. One thing that came up very quickly, people have talked about the fact that he is a devout Sikh. And there was a controversy very early on, pretty soon after he took over the party, over an interview he did with the CBC's Terry Molesky. Third time of asking. It's not a hard question. Third time of asking. Is it appropriate to put up... Sorry, I'm just going to finish my sentence.

And at the time, Singh didn't want to denounce Sikh extremists who glorify Talwinder Singh Parmar, one of the men responsible for the Air India bombing. Is that appropriate? Yes or no? So it is so unacceptable that the violence that was committed, the heinous massacre that was committed, is something that Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus all denounced. And he's since walked back from that position. But Hannah, you know, why did he do that in the first place? Yeah, well, it took him months to walk that back. In that interview, as you say, he didn't denounce extremists within Canada's Sikh community who glorify Parmar and to accept the Air India Inquiry's conclusions that Parmar was the mastermind behind the terrorist attack that killed hundreds of Canadians.

So you won't denounce those posters of Parmar? I don't know who was responsible, but I think we need to find out who's truly responsible. Parmar? I don't know who was responsible, but I think we need to find out who's truly responsible. When he came back out to walk it back, he said that there are some in the Sikh community who have not accepted the findings of the Air India Inquiry. So they still find it hard to accept that Parmar was to blame. I think the displaying of a picture of Mr. Parmar is something that re-traumatizes and hurts and injures people that are suffering so much in terms of that loss in their lives. And I don't think it's appropriate. So I don't think it should be done. But if someone else is doing it at an event, I still think it's important for me to reach out and speak to people and talk about my journey. And I think he was

trying to walk that extremely fine line, but taking months to do that didn't help him. Right, right. It felt like he was trying to make like a very nuanced argument about something that for most people was really not that nuanced at all. No, there was the inquiry that came out and had these conclusions. And I accept the findings of the investigation of the inquiry. I accept them and I condemn all those responsible. Yeah. What did the handling of that situation tell you about how he may deal with the high pressure role of being a federal leader? Yeah, I think he learned he cannot dabble in nuances like that. He has to be very clear.

He had to have known that question was going to be asked of him. had to have known that question was going to be asked of him. And, you know, even the chair of the Air India Families Association, Bal Gupta, his wife was killed on that flight. He said if Singh is a would-be prime minister and he can't answer predictable questions about a terrorist attack, it's astonishing. These criticisms of unpreparedness, you know, they didn't just come from this incident, right? No. He was criticized for not knowing his party's position on the firearms bill and having to ask a colleague for help all in the middle of a news conference. Can you tell us whether or not your caucus is behind you in supporting this bill?

At this point, you're not just giving me a moment. I'm absolutely clarifying. Another time he was confused about a recent development in China-Canada relations while doing a TV interview. The ambassador from China accused Canada of, quote, white supremacy. If you were the prime minister, what would you say to the Chinese right now? Sorry, who accused who of white supremacy? The ambassador. What do you make of criticisms that he just isn't prepared

and perhaps doesn't yet have the policy gravitas to lead the NDP to victory? I think that he has learned from that as well. You know, he probably wasn't prepared for those interviews. He didn't know what his party's policy is. But so far on the campaign, he seems to have learned from that. And at the events, when you ask him questions about the costing, about the details, he seems to have all of those answers. He hasn't been caught up like he has in those, you know, standing in front of a television, not knowing what is happening. That was a learning curve for him. And he seems to have moved forward from that at this point. I'm thinking of like former NDP leaders like Tom Mulcair and Ed Broadbent here who like, I know loved getting into the nitty gritty on policy.

These guys were kind of policy wonks. And how is Jagmeet Singh different from them? I think when it comes to Jagmeet Singh, he wants to use his personal experiences to talk about his policies. So it's more of a personal connection with people. You know, he uses the example of his dad a lot. And you kind of get the sense that he's a bit more like Jack Layton than the other two. Okay. And I think of all the people who came before us, the millions of men and women who believed so passionately in a more fair society,

and they refused to give up, often in the face of overwhelming odds. We stand on the shore. I also want to talk to you about the NDP itself. So, you know, you and I have talked about this on the podcast before. The NDP has had a lot of trouble fundraising. They're in, like, kind of dire straits financially right now. Singh is starting the official campaign low in the polls and with a diminished war chest. How much of this is a party problem or a Jagmeet problem?

I would say it's probably both. The party was in disarray after, you know, they ousted Tom Mulcair. The ground game is not what it once was. It's virtually non-existent in some places. They're having difficulty getting a full roster of candidates to run in this election campaign. This is also a big problem in Quebec for them. You know, the NDP have 14 seats there and polling shows that all of those are at risk. Right. And they could be wiped out in Quebec. Yeah, this is a province, remember,

that gave the party official opposition status in 2011 under Jack Layton's orange wave. And remember this too, this is why I say it could be both, is that this is the province that bans the wearing of religious symbols for some positions of authority. Recent polls show that, you know, Quebecers, the majority of them support Bill 21. And it's obvious, you know, Mr. Singh wears a turban and carries a cro-pan. He also has a French ad that opens with him wrapping his long hair up in a turban. So you think, you know, essentially his very identity is a political liability for him?

Yes. Yes, I do. And the reason why I say this, it is a very sensitive issue. But, I mean, I've heard people on the sidelines who won't go on camera saying things like, I like his policies, he seems like a nice guy, but I can't vote for a brown man in a turban. They won't talk on camera. But another person said to me at a plowing match that they hadn't seen someone wearing a yellow turban driving an orange tractor before. So this is what people are saying. And Singh's team even admits it's an issue. Okay. Looking at the aftermath from last week with the Trudeau blackface brownface controversy, do you think that it could also be a political asset for him,

the idea that he's the only political leader equipped to talk about racism from life experience? There was definitely a different feel on the campaign after Singh's response to that issue. Definitely a different feel. It's like that response was to address the people who felt the prime minister was mocking their lives. And he said he's felt that in the past. He even said at a rally in Windsor after the brownface, blackface issue came up. But to be honest with you, I really do believe that people are seeing themselves reflected in this campaign. And that, to me, is the most important thing. And you can tell there was even a different feel in the room there.

It was a bigger crowd. People were really connecting with him. I feel the excitement growing. I feel people are seeing themselves. So this could be a moment where voters reassess and take another look at Singh in the NDP. I'm not sure, though, if that's going to translate into NDP candidates getting elected, but there was definitely a different energy on the campaign

since then. I can't help but think, you know, talking about Jagmeet Singh's life, he has sort of always been an underdog here, right? And, you know, thinking of Jack Layden in 2011, his numbers also started out around 13%, so not very different from where the NDP is now. And so this idea that he's accustomed to being an underdog, we've got about a month to go. Do you think that that could be an advantage here? Or do you have the sense that it might be too late this time around? I think he revels in being an underdog. I think he knows what it's like his whole life to be in that position. And if you look at when, since the election started, the liberals and the conservatives have spent a lot of time attacking

each other. Justin Trudeau, Andrew Scheer, often playing the political game. This has really allowed Singh to focus on his policies. So he's out there trying to get people to know what he stands for, get to know him better. There's so many people that go through so much, they need someone to fight and stand up for them. And I hope I can do that. There, of course, is a lot of work to do.

The NDP, our poll tracker shows still a very distant third, but he never appears discouraged by this. Interesting. Well, Hannah, thank you so much for this. This was such an interesting conversation. I learned a lot. You're quite welcome. Okay, that's all for today. FrontBurner comes to you from CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show is produced by Shannon Higgins, Elaine Chao, Imogen Burchard, Chris Berube.

Derek Vanderwyk is our sound designer. Our music is by Joseph Chabison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of Frontburner is Nick McCabe-Locos. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thank you so much for listening to Frontburner. We're back on Monday. Have a great weekend. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.