{"id":258608,"date":"2020-06-19T03:54:55","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T07:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=258608"},"modified":"2020-06-19T03:59:22","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T07:59:22","slug":"jagmeet-singh-systemic-racism-exists-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/06\/19\/jagmeet-singh-systemic-racism-exists-in-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"Jagmeet Singh: Systemic racism exists in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">People have asked what happened in the House today.<\/p>\n<p>Here are my thoughts. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/VV8hX5Tq0u\">pic.twitter.com\/VV8hX5Tq0u<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/theJagmeetSingh\/status\/1273449551807078400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 18, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nNew Democratic Party (NDP) Leader Jagmeet Singh emphasized the existence of \u201csystematic racism\u201d in Canada, on the day that he was made to leave the country\u2019s parliament for calling an MP a \u2018racist.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For a lot of racialized people, for a lot of Black, and Indigenous, and people of colour, this has been a problem in Canada as well. Systemic racism exists in Canada,&#8221; he told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>With racism one of the hottest global issues right now, as well as the &#8220;horrible examples in the past couple of months,&#8221; Singh did not deny on Wednesday that he got angry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I&#8217;m sad now,\u201d he said pausing, before adding, \u201cBecause why can&#8217;t we act? Why can&#8217;t we do something to save people&#8217;s lives? We can do something. And why would someone say no to that?\u201d He turned emotional in this part of the speech, after detailing what happened in that day\u2019s session.<\/p>\n<p>Singh accused Alain Therrien of the Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois party of being a racist after the latter said no to a motion that acknowledges that systematic racism exists in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).<\/p>\n<p>The said motion laid out \u201creally clear steps,\u201d Singh said, which included de-escalation as a priority of the police, the review of the use of force, and for healthcare workers to be funded in this time of health crisis instead of the police.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTackling systemic racism is gonna take a lot of work and a lot of effort, but there&#8217;s some clear steps we can take,\u201d Singh said.<\/p>\n<p>While the majority gave their nod to the motion, the NDP leader narrated that he heard one \u201cno\u201d which Speaker Anthony Rota did not hear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd then that MP repeated louder so he could be heard, and I looked back, and he saw me look back, and I was kind of shocked that anyone would say no to this motion. Federal jurisdiction, clear path to do something about systemic racism in a moment where everyone is demanding action, and I looked back and saw that MP not only say no, but make eye contact with me but also brush his hand, dismiss it,\u201d Singh said.<\/p>\n<p>Right after the vote, Singh said that he called Therrien \u201ca racist and I believe that\u2019s so\u201d adding that he would not apologize for it. With these developments, Rota ejected him for the rest of the day.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois, in a tweet, urged Singh to apologize for \u2018tarnishing\u2019 Therrien\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n<p>Singh, a Sikh, is the first federal political leader to be from the minority.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supported the NDP leader.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is important that we recognize when the only racialized leader in the House of Commons makes a statement like that, that it comes from a place that yes, will make people uncomfortable, but needs to be dealt with as we move forward as a country,\u201d he said on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People have asked what happened in the House today. Here are my thoughts. pic.twitter.com\/VV8hX5Tq0u \u2014 Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) June 18, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":197166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-bea-kirstein-t-manalaysay","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258608"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258627,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258608\/revisions\/258627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}