'I tried to bury it
down': NDP leader Jagmeet Singh says he was sexually abused as a child
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Singh was 10 when alleged abuse by taekwondo coach occurred
CBC Radio • Posted: Apr 23, 2019 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: April 23
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has claimed in a new memoir that a taekwondo coach
sexually abused him when he was 10 years old.
"When it happened, I didn't know what to think," Singh told The Current's Anna
Maria Tremonti. "I felt a lot of shame and guilt, which I know is normal when
you go through something like this."
The politician revealed the abuse claim in his new book, Love & Courage: My
Story of Family, Resilience, and Overcoming the Unexpected, released Tuesday.
Singh told Tremonti that the coach spotted the young boy's enthusiasm for the
sport and singled him out for extra training at his home through a special
program.
"The program, really, was a guise to sexually assault me," Singh said.
"Even now when I think back, it's almost unimaginable that someone would go to
such lengths to set up a way to assault a little kid."
Singh said that the coach is now deceased. A representative for the politician,
referring to the coach as "Mr. N", said that he was never charged in relation to
the abuse, which is alleged to have happened in Windsor, Ont., in the late
1980s.
The CBC has not independently verified the account, and is not revealing the
coach's full name.
Singh took up classes to learn to defend himself
As a boy, Singh says he jumped at the chance to join the martial arts class. His
Sikh identity had attracted the attention of school bullies, he said, and he was
eager to learn to defend himself.
"It was a bit crushing to feel like every day going to school was a gamble.
Would I get picked on today? Would I get into a fight? Would someone attack me?"
he said.
His parents saw the toll the bullying was taking on Singh, and suggested
taekwondo as a way to rebuild his confidence.
"I right away thought of the movies I'd been watching, like Karate Kid," Singh
said.
He said he applied himself immediately, doing "extra push-ups before class
started, extra sit-ups after class ended."
"I wanted to be physically larger, so I could defend myself," he said.
Looking back now, he said that the coach saw that tenacity, and suggested the
extra training program as a way to take advantage of it.
"I was a little bit of a precocious kid, in the sense I loved reading, and I
loved health and — my dad being a doctor — I really wanted to learn more about
how the body worked," Singh said.
"So [Mr. N] tapped into that, and said: 'OK, this is going to be a program
that's going to help you get stronger faster, it's going to give you a
testosterone boost, it's going to help you get your black belt.'"
Singh said that when the alleged abuse occurred, he doesn't think he "could
fully understand what was going on."
He said he felt that it was his own fault, and he did not tell his parents.
His father was dealing with alcoholism at the time, and Singh said he "didn't
want to stress out" his mom.
"I tried to bury it down. I didn't really want to talk about it, I didn't really
want to think about it."
Singh said that police investigated the coach a few years later for separate
abuse allegations. The CBC has not been able to confirm whether that
investigation resulted in charges.
At that point, his mother sat him down and asked if anything had happened during
his taekwondo classes.
"I immediately said, 'No, no, not at all, not at all.'"
I want to tell people ... it's not their fault.- NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh
Singh didn't tell his mother until he was 25, he said.
After struggling for years, he said the words of a friend helped him understand
he was blameless.
"A dear friend told me that it wasn't my fault," he said. "That was a really
special moment because I knew it wasn't, but I hadn't heard anyone say it to me.
"I want to tell people the same thing: it's not their fault."
Why Singh is telling his story now
When Tremonti asked Singh why he was choosing to make the revelations now, in
the months before an election, he said he first thought about writing the book
when he became NDP leader in 2017.
"I wanted to do it because I had a platform where I could say a lot of things
that might help people out," he said.
"I hope that in the struggles that I faced, I can help people that are facing
similar struggles to feel less alone."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commended Singh's courage in telling his story,
tweeting over the weekend that the NDP leader was helping to "fight against
stigma."
During his time as NDP leader, Singh has spoken out about the importance of
believing survivors, and also addressed allegations of sexual misconduct and
abuses of power within his own party.
In 2018, Saskatchewan MP Erin Weir was investigated over claims of sexual
harassment. A third-party investigator found evidence to sustain one claim of
harassment and three claims of sexual harassment.
Following the findings, Singh said that he had been willing to consider
rehabilitative approachesif the Regina-Lewvan MP took full responsibility, but
that public comments made by Weir meant that was "no longer possible."
The NDP leader on the allegations of harassment and misconduct facing federal
and provincial politicians.
He expelled Weir from the NDP caucus on May 2, 2018.
The following week, he ordered another investigation into allegations of sexual
harassment and abuse of authority against Quebec MP Christine Moore. She was
cleared of all allegations in July.
With a federal election in the fall, the NDP is trailing the Liberals and
Conservatives, but Singh said he hopes Canadians can put their faith in him to
find "a new path."
"I have experienced things that I think many Canadians have gone through — the
feeling of not belonging, the feeling of being a victim, of being hurt, being
marginalized."
Singh said he wants to galvanize not just the left, but all Canadians.
"I hope that I can find the common thread that connects us all and say: We can
build a better Canada together."
________________________________________
Written by Padraig Moran. Produced by Howard Goldenthal.
Air India
Flight 182 Bombing
Article by Kim Bolan
Published Online March 31, 2017
Last Edited March 31, 2017
The bombing of an Air India flight from Toronto to Bombay on 23 June 1985 —
killing all 329 people on board — remains Canada’s deadliest terrorist attack. A
separate bomb blast the same day at Tokyo’s Narita Airport killed two baggage
handlers. After a 15-year investigation into the largest mass murder in the
country's history, two British Columbia Sikh separatists were charged with
murder and conspiracy in both attacks. They were acquitted in 2005. A third
accused, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was convicted of manslaughter for his role in
building the two bombs. Political Events Before Bombing In 1983, armed Sikh separatists took over
Sikhism’s holiest shrine — the Golden Temple complex— in Amritsar, India. From
within the temple compound, charismatic separatist leader Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale was agitating for a Sikh homeland, called Khalistan, to be carved
from the northern Indian state of Punjab.
In early June 1984, Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi ordered Operation
Bluestar, an attack by the Indian army on the temple, aimed at expelling
Bhindranwale and his followers. Bhindranwale and hundreds of innocent pilgrims
were killed, inciting demonstrations around the world.
Thousands of Sikh protesters took to the streets of Vancouverand other Canadian
cities, some calling for violent revenge against Gandhi and the Indian
government. Among those advocating militancy were two leaders of the Babbar
Khalsa extremist group — its founder Talwinder Singh Parmar and his lieutenant
Ajaib Singh Bagri.
On 31 October 1984, Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, setting off
anti-Sikh riots across India that left thousands dead.
The violent rhetoric in Canada by groups like the Babbar Khalsa and the
International Sikh Youth Federation intensified. Some targeted Sikh moderates
like Ujjal Dosanjh, a prominent Vancouver lawyer, who was jumped and beaten with
a reinforced steel bar in February 1985. Dosanjh was so concerned about the rise
of militancy that he wrote to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in April 1985,
warning him that the government needed to intervene before something more
serious happened. Suitcase Bombs Planted The fledgling Canadian Security
Intelligence Service (CSIS) was paying attention to Parmar and his associates.
CSIS agents were following Parmar and intercepting his phone calls from March to
June 1985. On 4 June, they tailed him to Duncan, on Vancouver Island, where he
met Inderjit Singh Reyat, a local marine mechanic, and also a mystery man dubbed
Mr. X. Parmar, Reyat and Mr. X drove to a wooded area outside of town, got out
and went into the trees. The agents could no longer see them. But minutes later,
they heard an explosion as the trio tested materials to be used in the Air India
bombing.
On 19 June, one of Parmar's associates bought two Canadian Pacific Airlines (CP)
tickets, each one connecting with an Air India flight. They were paid for using
$3,005 cash and picked up at CP's downtown Vancouver office. The tickets were
booked in the names of M. Singh, who had a seat on a flight to Toronto that
connected with Air India Flight 182, and L. Singh, who was booked on a flight to
Tokyo with a connection to a second Air India flight. The real identities of the
two men have never been determined.
On 22 June — arguably the most important day for the Air India conspirators —
CSIS agents were told to call off their surveillance of Parmar. Suitcases were
checked in at Vancouver International Airport for the two CP flights and for the
two connecting Air India flights. Neither passenger, whose names appeared on the
tickets used to check the suitcases, showed up to board the airplanes. Explosions Kill Hundreds Japanese baggage handlers Hideharu Koda
and Hideo Asano were unloading suitcases from a CP flight at Tokyo’s Narita
Airport on 23 June 1985. As they grabbed one of the bags from Vancouver that was
tagged for an Air India flight, it exploded. They were killed instantly.
At the same time, Air India Flight 182 had almost completed its six-hour
transatlantic crossing after picking up passengers in Toronto and Montréal.
There was nothing eventful about the overnight flight bound for Delhi and
Bombay. Captain Narendra Singh Hanse and his co-pilot Satwinder Singh Bhinder
were discussing their upcoming refueling stop at Heathrow Airport in London,
England.
The Boeing 747 was flying due east at 31,000 feet when Bhinder made contact with
air traffic controller Michael Quinn in Shannon, Ireland, to confirm the flight
path into London. Without warning, a suitcase bomb detonated in a rear cargo
hold. It blew a hole in the fuselage, forcing the aircraft to split from front
to back as the 307 passengers and 22 crew were thrown out.
At 7:13 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, Air India Flight 182 disappeared from Quinn’s
radar screen. Panicked, he radioed other flights in the air, but no one could
see the doomed plane. Quinn then called the marine rescue centre at Shannon
Airport and provided Air India’s last known location. Discovery of Passengers and Wreckage The merchant vessel Laurentian Forest was
carrying newsprint from Québec to Dublin, Ireland, when it received an emergency
call about 8:30 a.m. The ship was already in the area and soon found the
nightmarish scene: the ocean was strewn with bodies and debris. Crewmen Daniel
Brown and Mark Stagg spent hours in a small lifeboat attempting to recover
bodies from the sea as they were bashed by waves.
A British Royal Air Force (RAF) reconnaissance plane dropped flares to guide
rescue vessels and helicopters to the wreckage. An RAF helicopter was also quick
to respond. The Irish naval ship Aisling arrived just before noon and took
control of the scene and dispatched an inflatable boat with a three-person crew.
They spent hours picking up bodies — 38 in all. Eventually 19 vessels ranging
from warships to small fishing boats were on the scene. Despite their heroic
efforts, just 132 bodies of the 329 victims were recovered. They found no
survivors.
News of the Narita bombing and Air India disaster reached Canadians on the
morning of 23 June. Media reports soon made the link to a suspected terrorist
attack hatched in British Columbia by Sikh separatists advocating retaliation
against the Indian government. Criminal Investigation Begins The Canadian Security Intelligence
Service (CSIS) had only existed for 11 months at the time of the bombing. But
agents had already amassed a large file on the suspected mastermind, Talwinder
Singh Parmar, and his associates.
When CSIS agent Ray Kobzey first heard about the bombing, his immediate thought
was that Parmar was behind it. Some CSIS agents working on the Sikh separatist
file later said they weren’t completely familiar with the new agency’s policies
at the time of the bombings. There was confusion about how much information CSIS
was supposed to share with the RCMP— an issue that would plague the
investigation for years and lead to the destruction of hundreds of hours of
intercepted calls between Parmar and other suspects.
Initially, a huge contingent of RCMP officers was also assigned to the case —
the biggest mass murder investigation in Canadian history¬—although the RCMP
resources committed to the case diminished over time.
Meanwhile, Japanese police had painstakingly collected evidence from the Narita
blast that pointed to Reyat. Irish police were gathering wreckage collected from
the ocean and dealing with the victims’ remains at the hospital in the city of
Cork. While some victims were citizens of India, most were Canadians of Indian
origin. Reyat and Parmar Investigators zeroed in on Reyat, Parmar,
Bagri and a man named Surjan Singh Gill, who had resigned from the Babbar Khalsa
just days before the bombings. It appeared that police were making good
progress, especially when search warrants were executed at the homes of several
suspects in November 1985. But the only charges laid were minor ones against
Parmar and Reyat involving possession of explosives for the bomb tests. The
charges against Parmar were later dropped, while Reyat received a $2,000 fine
for possessing explosives. Reyat moved his family to England in
1986. He would eventually be charged, extradited back to Canada and convicted of
manslaughter in the Narita bombing. He received a 10-year sentence.
Parmar slipped out of Canada in 1988 and set up a base in Pakistan. He was
killed in India in 1992. Indian police in Punjab falsely claimed he was caught
in an “encounter,” but in fact he was arrested, tortured and killed in custody
during a crackdown on separatists there. Investigation Stalls and Revives By the mid-1990s, the Air India
investigation had stalled. There were few officers working on the file. There
were few tips coming in.
Gary Bass, an RCMP inspector who would later become a deputy commissioner, was
instrumental in setting a new direction for the probe. In 1995, he assigned
veteran officer Doug Henderson, who had interviewed Reyat a decade earlier, to
lead a review of the file. A $1 million reward was announced in the hopes that
it might bring in new information. "Ten years have gone by," said Henderson.
"There are a lot of people who maybe didn't want to talk before who may want to
talk now.”
Bass was highly critical of CSIS's earlier decision to erase its wiretap
recordings of the Air India suspects. He wrote a scathing memo in 1996, saying
that charges could have been laid years earlier if the tapes had been saved.
The RCMP succeeded in getting key witnesses to co-operate, including newspaper
publisher Tara Singh Hayer. Once a Sikh separatist himself, Hayer had written
against the Air India suspects in his Indo-Canadian Times newspaper. He had also
been shot and paralyzed in a 1988 assassination attempt after he had published
incriminating information against Bagri. Shortly after police announced they had
sent their Air India file to prosecutors for approval to lay new criminal
charges, Hayer was shot to death in the garage of his home in Surrey, British
Columbia. Murder Charges Laid On 27 October 2000, Ripudaman Singh Malik
was arrested at a private school he had founded in Surrey. Ajaib Singh Bagri was
also arrested, outside his home in Kamloops, British Columbia. They were charged
with conspiracy to commit the first-degree murders of those who died aboard Air
India Flight 182. They also faced similar charges in the deaths of the two
Japanese baggage handlers. Bagri was also charged with attempted murder in the
1988 Hayer shooting.
Ujjal Dosanjh, once a target of separatist violence, and by now the premier of
BC, said of the arrests: ''The people of British Columbia and the people of
Canada will heave a sigh of relief that finally justice may be done in this case
. . . My thoughts go out to the families of the victims.''
Police promised more arrests after Malik and Bagri were in custody. On 29
October, Vancouver School Board custodian Hardial Singh Johal was picked up. He
had long been a suspect in the conspiracy, but the evidence against him seemed
thin. He was released a day later and never charged.
Then there was Reyat, identified on the criminal indictment as a co-conspirator
but not yet charged. He had been extradited from England to face charges only in
the Narita bombing. But in June 2001, Reyat was charged at a BC prison with
first-degree murder in the deaths of the 329 Air India victims.
The three accused were held at the Vancouver pre-trial jail. A new high-security
courtroom was built in the city's downtown at a cost of more than $7 million.
Before the trial started, Reyat agreed to plead guilty but only to manslaughter.
There was widespread belief that he would implicate the others when he was
called as a prosecution witness. He was sentenced to just five years in prison
for his role in the deaths of the 329 Air India passengers and crew. Trial for Mass Murder The trial of the century, as many
observers called it, began at the British Columbia Supreme Court on 28 April
2003. The courtroom was packed with families of the victims who had been
awaiting justice for 18 years. There were relatives and supporters of the
accused and there were many journalists and police in the public gallery as
well.
Lead prosecutor Bob Wright laid out the Crown’s case, saying that both Malik and
Bagri had conspired with the late Talwinder Parmar, Reyat and “unknown” others
to bomb India’s national airline. Lawyers for both accused men then said the
Crown’s case was weak and relied on witnesses with grudges against Malik and
Bagri.
Over the next year and half, 115 people would testify in the trial before
Justice Ian Josephson.
The star witness against Malik was a former daycare supervisor at his private
school, who claimed he had confessed to her after their friendship blossomed.
The woman, whose identity was shielded by court order, was forced into the
witness protection program after she was threatened repeatedly.
Narinder Singh Gill, a former school director, testified that he heard Parmar
talk about a violent plan to retaliate against the Indian government. He also
said Malik urged him in 1997 not to co-operate with the police and offered to
pay for him to consult a lawyer.
Another former Malik associate, whose name is protected by court order,
testified that Malik asked him to carry a suitcase onto an Air India flight, and
that Malik said he wanted "to teach the Indian government a lesson." A second
man also testified that Malik once asked him to carry an attaché case containing
a bomb to Vancouver International Airport.
There was also “John,” a colourful and controversial witness from New York who
grew up in Bagri's boyhood village in India. He was an informant for the United
States Federal Bureau of Investigation and claimed that Bagri once confessed to
having a role in the Air India bombing.
Reyat was also called to the stand in September 2003. Instead of co-operating
with the prosecution, he repeatedly claimed he couldn’t remember key details of
the Air India plot and said nothing against his former co-accused.
The defence also called a series of witnesses, including Mindy Bhandher, an
admitted gangster who has since been convicted of murder. He cast doubt on the
key testimony of two witnesses against Malik. Some of the other defence
witnesses were also suspects in the bombing but denied their involvement when
questioned in court.
The trial ended on 3 December 2004. Justice Josephson announced he would deliver
his verdict in March 2005.
The RCMP provided funds for relatives of the victims around the world to fly to
Vancouver for the verdict. Many assumed they would finally have some justice.
Instead, they gasped and sobbed when Josephson found both men not guilty and
said the Crown’s evidence had fallen “markedly short.” Both Malik and Bagri
walked out of the courthouse with their families within an hour. Aftermath Devastated families of the victims
renewed their calls for a public inquiry into the bombing. The federal
governmentresisted at first but then appointed former Ontario premier Bob Rae to
do a review and make recommendations on the scope of an inquiry.
On 23 June 2005, the 20th anniversary of the bombings, Liberal Prime Minister
Paul Martin attended a memorial service in Ahakista, Ireland, with victims’
families. It was the first time a Canadian prime minister had visited the Irish
memorial, which was built right after the bombing.
In November 2005, the Martin government agreed that Rae would hold a limited
public inquiry. When the Conservativesunder Prime Minister Stephen Harper won
power in January 2006, they announced an expanded judicial inquiry headed by
retired Supreme Court of Canada justice John Major. Inquiry Over 18 months, Major heard repeated
stories of missed warnings about the bombing. There was a June 1985 Air India
telex message that suggested planes could be targeted by "time delay devices."
And Ontario Lieutenant-Governor James Bartleman testified that, as a senior
intelligence official in the federal Department of External Affairs, he saw a
security "intercept" with a specific warning of a threat against the airline on
the weekend of the bombing.
The inquiry also heard about tensions between the RCMP and CSIS, including petty
rivalries, confusion about policies and general disarray in intelligence work
leading up to the bombing.
Ujjal Dosanjh, by this time a Liberal member of Parliament, and Tara Hayer’s
son, Dave, then member of the British Columbia legislature, testified about the
climate of fear that existed in BC's Indo-Canadian community for two decades.
Extremist threats, attacks and even the murder of Hayer's father have all gone
unprosecuted, they said.
On 17 June 2010, Major released a 4,000-page, five-volume report making 64
recommendations. He chastised successive Canadian governments for treating the
relatives of those who died in the nation's deadliest terrorist attack as
"adversaries, as if they had somehow brought this calamity upon themselves." He
said they deserved an apology and compensation – a recommendation Prime Minister
Stephen Harper immediately accepted.
Major also criticized the RCMP, CSIS and other government agencies for ignoring
repeated warnings and for failing to stop the deadly blasts. "A cascading series
of errors contributed to the failure of our police and security forces to
prevent this atrocity," he said. "The level of error, incompetence, and
inattention which took place before the flight was sadly mirrored in many ways
for many years, in how authorities, Governments, and institutions dealt with the
aftermath of the murder of so many innocents: in the investigation, the legal
proceedings, and in providing information, support and comfort to the families.”
Major called for the federal government's National Security Advisor to be given
responsibility for preventing turf wars between agencies. He also called for a
national director of terrorism prosecutions, a new coordinator of witness
protection for terrorism cases, and sweeping changes to close the gaps in
airport security. Federal Apology A week later, on the 25th anniversary of
the bombing, Prime Minister Harper issued a formal apology for the errors that
were made by government agencies both before and after the tragedy.
On Sept. 19, 2010, a jury convicted Inderjit Singh Reyat of perjury for lying at
the Air India trial. When Justice Mark McEwan sentenced him to nine years, he
said Reyat “behaved nothing like a remorseful man unwittingly implicated in mass
murder. In the witness box, Mr. Reyat behaved like a man still committed to a
cause which treated hundreds of men, women and children [as] expendable,” McEwan
said.
Reyat was released to a halfway house in January 2016. A year later, the parole
board said he could now move back home.
