There are so many things I would rather be writing about than Burnaby South MP Jagmeet Singh.
But the leader of the federal NDP is just making it so hard these days.
I wrote a column Monday about an interview he gave in which he sounded in denial about his party getting walloped in a recent federal byelection.
Now Singh is making headlines for an interview he did with the CBC TV show Power & Politics with host Vassy Kapelos.
She asked Singh several times if he still supports the $40-billion LNG project in northern B.C.
Singh has pledged his party’s support before, leading to his own candidate in Burnaby North-Seymour, Svend Robinson, publicly criticizing the decision because of the impacts of fracking.
On Tuesday, Singh came out against fracking so it made sense that Kapelos would ask him how that squares with his support of an LNG project in B.C.
.@VassyKapelos asked @theJagmeetSingh several times whether he supports LNG development in British Columbia. Singh would not answer, instead he praised B.C.’s climate change plan and attacked the federal gov’t for buying the Trans Mountain pipeline #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/QPtuORAkfQ
— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) May 14, 2019
And you know what? Singh wouldn’t answer the question. In fact, he didn’t even really address the question. Singh just kept bringing up the Trans Mountain project and how much he supports B.C.’s climate change plan (although the BC NDP also supports the massive LNG project in B.C., which includes fracking).
The interview was a truly inept performance by Singh, who usually gets praised for being a good communicator. But Singh also has a habit of just pounding talking points into the ground – in this case, grinding out those talking points just came across as evasive and weak.
Kapelos ends the interview by saying, “I tried.”
This was not one of Singh’s finer moments. Actually, it was a disaster. The party’s already stuck way back in third place with the federal Greens gaining and coming off a convincing win on Vancouver Island.
If Singh really is against fracking, he needs to just come out and admit he made a mistake supporting the LNG project in B.C.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
