Canada: NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh gets expelled from House of Commons for calling Bloc MP a racist
Ottawa/IBNS: Expulsion of Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP) Leader Jagmeet Singh from the House of Commons for the rest of the day by Speaker Anthony Rota on June 16 resulted when Singh called a Bloc Québécois MP Alain Therrien racist, breaking a parliamentary rule by refusing to apologize and withdraw his comments, media reports said.
"I called him a racist and I believe it," said Singh during a press conference on June 16 and added, "I looked back and saw that the MP not only said no but just brushed his hands and dismissed it. At that moment I got angry."
When Singh tried to get all the parties in the House of Commons to agree to a motion recognizing the existence of systemic racism in the RCMP, Therrien was the only MP in the House who refused to support the motion.
People have asked what happened in the House today.
— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) June 18, 2020
Here are my thoughts. pic.twitter.com/VV8hX5Tq0u
Another clause in the motion asked MPs to support a review of the RCMP's budget and demanded that the RCMP release all its reports using force as well as review the RCMP's tactics for dealing with the public.
The motion also indicated that "several Indigenous people have died at the hands of the RCMP in recent months …"
Soon after Singh made his remarks in the House of Commons, Bloc Whip Claude DeBellefeuille stood up to express her disapproval.
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According to a statement issued the Bloc Québécois saying that "discrimination against Indigenous communities and cultural minorities is a major issue" but the public safety committee is currently studying systemic racism in the RCMP and it should be allowed to do its work.
"We consider it inappropriate to impose findings to a committee before it has conducted its study. We respect the parliamentary process," DeBellefeuille said in French during the conference on June 16 and added "The NDP leader defamed the parliamentary leader of the Bloc Québécois with an unwarranted insult … He should apologize immediately."
Indigenous Leaders have expressed a lack of confidence in the RCMP commissioner’s ability to tackle systemic racism after she was unable to say whether it existed in the RCMP
— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) June 17, 2020
We need systemic changes so that not one more Indigenous person dies at the hands of the RCMP pic.twitter.com/QWupAda6su
An apology is being demanded by Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet from Singh for calling one of his MPs a racist.
Singh's office, however, said the NDP leader does not intend to apologize.
(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)
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