Jagmeet Singh

In the 40th Parliament of Ontario, Singh was appointed as the NDP critic for the attorney general and consumer services portfolios.

He also served as his party's deputy house leader.

Singh called for greater police accountability and demanded the provincial government draft legislation to strengthen Ontario's Special Investigations Unit (SIU).

Jagmeet Singh Jimmy Dhaliwal (born January 2, 1979) is a Canadian politician who has served as the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) since 2017.

Singh was born on January 2, 1979, in Scarborough, Ontario, to Harmeet Kaur and Jagtaran Dhaliwal.

His parents are both from the Indian state of Punjab, with his mother being from Ghudani Khurd in Ludhiana district, while his father is from Thikriwala in Barnala district.

His great-grandfather was Sewa Singh Thikriwala, a political activist who campaigned for the cause of Indian independence.

Another great-grandfather, Hira Singh, served in World War I and World War II in the Sikh Regiment of the British Indian Army.

After a year as a toddler living with his grandparents in India, Singh spent his early childhood in St. John's and Grand Falls-Windsor, both in Newfoundland and Labrador, before relocating with his family to Windsor, Ontario.

Singh has publicly discussed suffering sexual abuse as a child from a martial arts coach, as well as having a father who struggled with alcoholism.

From grades 6 to 12, Singh attended Detroit Country Day School in Beverly Hills, Michigan.

Singh provided pro bono consulting to an activist group that protested the visit to Canada of Kamal Nath, the Indian trade minister who had allegedly led armed mobs during the 1984 Delhi pogrom.

After failing to get their views heard, Singh was inspired to run for office by the activist group so their concerns could be better represented.

He went on to obtain a B.Sc. degree in biology from the University of Western Ontario in 2001 and in 2005 graduated as a Bachelor of Laws from York University's Osgoode Hall Law School.

He was called to the bar of Ontario in 2006.

Singh has two younger siblings, brother Gurratan and sister Manjot, who were both born during the family's time in Newfoundland.

He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 2011, representing Bramalea—Gore—Malton until his entry into federal politics.

A practicing Sikh of Punjabi descent, Singh is an Indo-Canadian, making him the first Sikh and the first member of a visible minority group to be elected to lead a major federal political party in Canada.

After graduating from Osgoode Hall Law School, Singh became a criminal defence lawyer, starting a law firm with his brother Gurratan.

In 2011 his political career began when he contested the 2011 federal election in the federal riding of Bramalea—Gore—Malton which resulted in a narrow victory for Conservative opponent Bal Gosal; he became a member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in the overlapping provincial riding later that year.

Singh began his political career with his decision to run for member of Parliament in the 2011 federal election as the NDP candidate in the riding of Bramalea—Gore—Malton.

During the election, Singh stopped using his surname, Dhaliwal (which is connected to caste), because he wanted to signal his rejection of the inequality inherent in the Indian caste system.

Instead, he chose to use the more common Singh.

Although he was defeated by Conservative candidate Bal Gosal by 539 votes, Singh finished ahead of incumbent Liberal MP Gurbax Singh Malhi.

Singh ran in the 2011 Ontario provincial election as the NDP candidate in the overlapping provincial riding, defeating Liberal incumbent Kuldip Kular by 2,277 votes.

Singh became the first New Democrat elected to represent the Peel Region, as well as the first turban-wearing MPP.

In a Toronto Star article published on January 9, 2012, Singh stated that his background in criminal defence contributed to his decision to enter politics, particularly his work advocating for the protection of rights entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In 2015, he became deputy leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, serving under leader Andrea Horwath until 2017.

Singh announced his candidacy for the federal New Democratic Party leadership following a leadership review that resulted in a leadership election to replace Tom Mulcair.

Singh was elected leader on October 1, 2017, with a first round vote of 53.8 per cent in a field of four.

Gurratan Singh was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the 2018 Ontario election, representing the riding of Brampton East.

Singh worked as a criminal defence lawyer in the Greater Toronto Area before entering politics, first at the law firm Pinkofskys, then at his own practice, Singh Law, which he established with Gurratan.

Singh has sat as the member of Parliament (MP) for Burnaby South since 2019.

In the 2019 federal election, the New Democrats under Singh lost 15 seats and dropped from third party to fourth party status.

In the 2021 federal election, the NDP gained one seat and remained the fourth party.

Upon his election, Singh became the first person of a visible minority group to lead a major Canadian federal political party on a permanent basis, and the second overall after the Bloc Québécois’s former interim leader Vivian Barbot.

Singh is also the first turban-wearing Indian and Sikh to sit as a provincial legislator in Ontario.

He has been widely recognized in Canadian media for his fashion and style sense.

Ideologically, Singh identifies as both a progressive and a social democrat.

He advocates raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, decriminalizing personal possession of all drugs, and supports eliminating several tax deductions available to the highest-income earners.