Amazing grace

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This article was published 04/10/2019 (2338 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At first, it was a typical scene from the time-honoured rituals of retail politics: Jagmeet Singh, strolling through Montreal’s Atwater Market, wife at his side and a campaign videographer close behind. An older man ambled towards him, jacket zipped against the October chill, gruffly accepting Singh’s passing greeting.

“Bonjour, monsieur,” Singh said, offering his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

The man leaned in to whisper in Singh’s ear, as if to share a secret. Perhaps he was unaware of the fact the NDP leader’s lapel microphone picked up his words loud and clear. Or maybe he knew he could be heard but, insulated from the casual aggression of what he was about to say, simply didn’t care.

“You should cut your turban off,” he mumbled. “You’ll look like a Canadian.”

Singh leaned back, but held eye contact calmly. “I think Canadians look like all sorts of people,” he replied, and then he patted the man on the shoulder gently, as if to reassure that the gap between the two — physical and otherwise — was not so large at all. “That’s the beauty of Canada,” he added.

“In Rome, you do as the Romans do,” the man said.

Singh gracefully parried that retort, too: this is Canada, he replied, and you can do whatever you like. “Thanks,” he added, and forced a dry chuckle. He took his wife’s arm and turned away, heading toward the rest of the market.

As the video shot across Canada, Singh was praised for how he handled the interaction, for the generosity of his calm, unearned and undeserved by its recipient. He has shown similar composure publicly before, back in 2017, when a heckler at one of his events accused him of being “in bed with” the Muslim Brotherhood.

“We welcome you, we love you, we support you,” he told that heckler.

To think what is required of a man that he should bear these insults with unflinching patience. To recognize how accustomed to it he has become, in life, then in politics, that he did not show shock or surprise. To think of what it means to navigate racist comments, aware that, for every one uttered, more lurk unspoken in public minds.

He should not have to do this. Should not have to bear those barbs, or take them with an unfazed tolerance. The fact that he does says something about Singh, to be sure. But it also says something about the expectations heaped onto his shoulders — ones the other party leaders do not bear the same.

Because Singh would have been right to be angry, to have shown anger, to speak it. He would have been justified to call that man out right there, under the grey sky of Atwater Market. To demand he explain what a Canadian looks like, if not like a major party leader criss-crossing the country while running for higher office.

But if he had become angry, what then? What would the headlines have said, if not praising his composure? Would the television panellists and social media commentariat have clucked their tongues in dismay? Of course, they might have said, the man was wrong to say what he did, but shouldn’t a leader be able to resist taking bait?

VIDEO of NDP leader Jagmeet Singh being confronted at Montreal’s Atwater Market by someone who advised him that he should remove his turban. #cdnpoli #polqc pic.twitter.com/iNFQ4QGlmW

— Debra Arbec (@DebraArbecCBC) October 2, 2019

The fact is, for Singh, anger is a dead-end road. When the man in Atwater Market made the statement, all eyes turned to the NDP leader, and he knew it. The price of his position is that to be accepted, he must act Canada’s national myth of politeness back to the nation; if there is anger, the public must speak it for him.

OK, so let’s lay it all out: the comment towards Singh was racist, xenophobic and unacceptable. It is also not an isolated sentiment. In a 2017 survey, just over half of Canadians said they would vote for a party led by someone who wore a religious head covering, the lowest openness to all such hypothetical characteristics.

Just two weeks ago, a news article out of Quebec mulled over how Singh’s turban might be affecting his party’s poll numbers in that province. The fact that some punditry engages it with the same horse-race commentary as policy debate gives only a veneer of validity to what is, at its heart, an inescapably bigoted objection.

Meanwhile, that interaction in Atwater Market did capture a critical facet of this federal campaign. All elections are, in a way, about expectations — about where they are set, and for whom and how candidates and parties rise above or fall below them. This time around, that matter is being circled with bright red lines.

Singh wears a turban in keeping with his Sikh faith, and is told to his face that he looks un-Canadian. Justin Trudeau once wore a turban and blackface as a mocking costume, and much of the ensuing dialogue spins it as a regrettable young mistake, but not one that should affect his position or the federal election race.

What starker image could there be to illustrate how privilege shapes expectations? On one side, a man accustomed to defending his very presence in Canada with a smile and a pat on the shoulder; on the other, a man whose place in the nation’s elite is so assured, he faced few consequences for claiming other identities as a joke.

Also in the last week, news broke that Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer had evidently fudged his history as an insurance broker; he had done clerical work at a brokerage, it turns out, but was never licensed. As far as political scandals go, this is tepid tea indeed, but still, it emphasizes the porosity of expectations.

For Singh, the bar is that he must bear jabs at his ethnicity and religion with a preternatural grace. For Trudeau, the bar set by a large chunk of voters is that, whatever else he may have done and however insensitive he was to race, he continue to not be Andrew Scheer. The bar for Scheer, likewise, is more or less that he not be Trudeau.

In just over two weeks, Canadians will choose a new government. Unless something truly unprecedented happens between now and Oct. 21, Singh will not be the next prime minister. Still, it ought to be remembered that in this race, he faced the ugliest parts of Canada and, under the scrutiny of high expectations, rose above them.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca