Ottawa (Canada):Speaker of the House of Commons ordered on Wednesday NDP leader Jagmeet Singh to leave the House for the remainder of the day after he Refused to apologise from Bloc Quebecois MP and Party House leader Alain Therrien after calling him a racist.
However, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he stands by his actions and words in the House of Commons. Singh called Therrien a racist for denying the approval needed for a motion calling out systemic racism in the RCMP, says CTV news.
"I don't back down from standing up to racism... I don't think it benefits for me to call people names, I was angry at the moment and I stand by it," Singh said in a press conference a few hours after the very tense moment during the special sitting to study the latest round of federal spending measures.
Singh was seeking the unanimous consent of the House of Commons to pass a motion calling on the House to recognize there is systemic racism within the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and call on the government to review the RCMP budget as well as the federal law that governs the police force.
His motion also called for other accountability measures related to the RCMP, including a full review of the use of force by members and the training officers get.
It appeared that all other parties were on side with the motion but an audible "no" came from the area in the House of Commons where the Bloc Quebecois caucus sits.
To reporters in the viewing gallery above the House of Commons, Singh and Therrien could then be seen exchanging heated words a few rows away from each other and out of the view of the Commons cameras, before Bloc Quebecois MP and party whip Claude DeBellefeuille called on the House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota to call for order, saying in French that the NDP leader had insulted her colleague and was using unparliamentarily language.