Jagmeet Singh statement following meeting with Prime Minister

NDP Leader, Jagmeet Singh, made the following statement:

“People in communities across our country are feeling the impacts of the convoy. Health care workers, retail and grocery store workers, truck drivers, small business owners and residents have been harassed, intimidated, and even assaulted during these occupations. Thousands of workers have been forced to stay home from their jobs which makes it harder for them to feed their families and pay their rent. Instead of showing leadership, for weeks now, the Prime Minister has spent more time looking for excuses than providing solutions.

Today, in our meeting with the Prime Minister and other opposition leaders, I again called on Prime Minister Trudeau to act urgently to end this convoy and to work on a plan to get Canadians out of the pandemic. The occupations are hurting families, small businesses, and workers. The blockades in Windsor are disrupting our supply chain and auto manufacturing in the city has been forced to shut down. Schools in Ottawa and Manitoba are being targeted.

We're also being told that millions of dollars from anonymous donors and American actors are enabling the convoys that are hurting Canadian workers across the country. Far right factions in the U.S. and elsewhere are trying to bring their radical views to Canada, funding extremists, emboldening racism and antisemitism, and threatening to overthrow the government. This absolutely cannot continue. We saw Premier Ford in Ontario get an injunction to prevent these funds from being spent on illegal activities. I encouraged the Prime Minister to follow suit and do the same.

Canadians have been missing national leadership during this crisis. They're tired of jurisdictional excuses, they just want this to stop. We owe them to use every tool available to stop these occupations that are harming Canadian workers and their families, and to work on a plan to get this to end.”