Singh confronts heckler outside Parliament
Interaction shows rarely seen side of NDP leader
In an unusual move for Jagmeet Singh, the NDP leader confronted a man who heckled him as he was leaving Parliament Hill on Tuesday.
In a video posted on X Tuesday afternoon by PressProgress editor Luke LeBrun, two men can be seen following Singh at a distance as he exits West Block, with one appearing to call the NDP leader a “corrupted bastard.”
The video shows Singh respond by turning around, asking the men who made the remark, and whether they wanted to repeat it to his face.
Both men are shown in the video denying that they made the remark.
The NDP leader, who is known for his calm responses to public incidents of harassment and heckling, approached and confronted one of the men, whose identity the Star has not confirmed.
“Was it you or not?” Singh is shown asking the man, who replies that the comment was uttered by someone behind him.
“You sure it’s not you?” Singh asks after the man fails to identify who might have made the remark.
“A hundred per cent,” the man says.
“Cause you’re a coward. You’re not going to say it to my face,” Singh replies, standing close to the man and pointing at his face.
“If I said something like that to you, I’d admit it,” the man replies, at which point Singh turns and walks away.
The video shows the NDP leader was then approached by the second man, who began to ask him a question about confidence votes, now that the NDP has the power to pull the plug on Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberals. Singh waves him off and walks away.
The interaction offered a rarely seen side of the NDP leader, who made headlines during his party’s 2017 leadership race for his positive handling of a protester who confronted Singh in a racist tirade at a rally in Brampton.
Singh, who went on to win that race, famously told the woman and the assembled crowd that people should be treated with “love and courage,” and told her she was loved and supported.
In 2022, Singh was accosted by protesters in Peterborough, Ont., while he was attending a campaign event for the provincial NDP. As protesters hurled profanities at him at close range, Singh did not engage and instead got into a vehicle.
During the 2019 federal election campaign, Singh was approached at Montreal’s Atwater Market by a man who told the NDP leader to “cut off” his turban so that he would appear more “Canadian.”
Singh defused the situation by telling the man that Canadians “look like all sorts of people,” with the man eventually conveying to Singh that he hoped he would win the election.
In a written statement, an NDP spokesperson told the Star that protesters in front of Parliament Hill had been “filming and harassing staff, pedestrians, journalists and even visitors — some of whom are here because they have survived terrible trauma and have come to share their story with lawmakers.”
“Jagmeet Singh does not tolerate bullies and does not condone violence,” the statement said.
New Democrat MP Charlie Angus called the heckling incident an “absolute disgrace,” and asked why security did not intervene.
Anti-government protesters have gathered near West Block since Monday, when Parliament resumed after its summer recess.