SASKATOON -- Days after a man asked Jagmeet Singh to cut his turban off in a Montreal market so he would would look more “Canadian,” the NDP Leader was again talking about race - this time during a campaign stop in Saskatoon.
In an interview with CTV News, Singh was asked about a cartoon shared on twitter by Mark Friesen, the People’s Party of Canada candidate in the Saskatoon-Grasswood riding.
The image included a caricature that depicted Singh with a bomb with a burning fuse resting in his turban, which he wears as a practicing Sikh.
“It’s one thing to have opinions and say that you disagree. Where it comes to the point where it’s not acceptable is when the goal is to simply just create hate or fear,” Singh said.
While talking about the cartoon, Singh pointed to the deadly Quebec City mosque attack in 2017 which left six people dead.
“We’ve seen the impacts in Quebec, when divisive or hateful language and rhetoric is spread, people can lose their lives,” Singh said.
In an interview with CTV News, Friesen said he initially got a “chuckle” out of the drawing and didn’t notice that Singh was depicted with a bomb in his turban.
“It looked like a toque with a pom-pom,” Friesen said. “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.”
However, Friesen said he did not remove the image once another Twitter user pointed out the bomb depicted in the image.
Singh said he doesn’t buy Friesen’s explanation.
“I looked at the picture and it’s pretty obvious,” Singh said.
Friesen now appears to have deleted the image from his Twitter feed.
