With Leadership in Mind, He Proposes. Hope it Works!

With two opposition parties trying to elect their leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been smooth sailing with hardly any opposition leader raking up right issues to seek answers from the Liberal party or the government.  With Andrew Scheer taking over the reins of Conservative Party, all eyes are now set on the New Democratic Party (NDP) leadership Contest.

NDP leadership contest has seen some remarkable debates focusing on issues that are dear to Canadians. NDP will decide its leadership in September. During the various debates, the NDP has been trying to clarify to the delegates, who they are and what they want the party to be. They are trying to create clarity on objectives of the party and want the new leader to evolve around it. Jack Layton had built the party on strong party principles and values. Tom Mulcair failed to create a public support for the party. He failed to even secure enough votes in Quebec for the party. From the status of an official opposition party in 2015, the party again trails- even the Conservatives.

Charlie Angus, Jagmeet Singh, Niki Ashton and Guy Caron are vying for the NDP leadership and have debated on climate change, pensions and federal basic income to overcome poverty. Jagmeet Singh’s proposal to have movement of funds from wealthier contributions to poorer recipients has sounded good to many Canadians. The quality of debates has even put the various contestants to test and have provided the delegates and the watchers a deep insight to the quality that each candidate brings to the leadership. Jagmeet Singh has been striking the right chords. He declared that when he releases his criminal justice platform, it will begin with a federal ban on racial profiling. After declaring so, in a series of tweets he revealed that police have stopped him “11 times in his life for no apparent reason”. His forceful assertion came at the right time, when a lot of questions were being raised promoted by pent up feelings expressed by a Canadian woman in a walk-in- clinic last month. The lady had demanded that her son be treated by a “White doctor”. Her rant was caught on the Camera and she carried her own characterization of racial profiling and standard to expect from a doctor. “Can I see a doctor please that’s white, that doesn’t have brown teeth and that speaks English?” the woman said in the video captured at the Rapid Access to Medical Specialists clinic in Mississauga. Rather than focusing on getting treatment for her kid, her focus was on “finding people” as per her standards and her rant exhibited that for her a doctor is good if he or she is a white only. Many air travelers have experienced similar kind of racial profiling. A recent traveler between Toronto and Calgary shared that the airport system in the country is based on the assumption that every air passenger poses a potential threat, and the threat perception grows many fold if you happen to be a visible immigrant.

Jagmeet Singh is known to be a man of his words. When he contested the election for the Ontario Legislature, he had assured his voters to bringing down the auto insurance and he has been able to bring a change in the same. Certain qualities in him have left a mark on his colleagues too. “Jagmeet’s commitment to equality and justice and his empathetic, open, and attentive leadership style convinced me that he is the future of our party. I find his tremendous respect for others, for their opinions, and his willingness to listen inspiring. It’s reminiscent of Jack and is exactly the type of leadership we need for our party,” Laurier-Sainte-Marie MP Hélène Laverdière said as she announced her support for Jagmeet Singh’s bid to lead the New Democratic Party (NDP) of Canada.

Jagmeet, if elected as the party leader could pose a serious challenge to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and if he can get a federal ban on racial profiling he is bound to get the support of all those who have suffered at the hands of the authorities for no faults of theirs. However, will it be effective to eradicate the biases as exhibited by the mother at a clinic? More than a law, a sensitization would be required and that may not come easy.

Jagmeet Singh as of now is offering a lot to party delegates in the form of new ideas, and his ideas are getting a response too. Will he emerge a front runner?