Jagmeet Singh publicly apologizes for saying he doesn’t respect Conservatives

His original comment came after being asked if he would respect a Conservative majority. The very question made him laugh, and he said, chuckling, “We don’t respect Conservatives, no.”

Considering somewhere in the region of 30-35 per cent of the country is ready to vote Conservative, the comment left Jagmeet with a bad taste in his mouth — ostracizing a third of the country for a difference of opinion has that effect on someone that needs to swing voters to his side.

On Friday, while speaking to a NDP crowd in Port Alberni, B.C., Singh apologized and said that he felt bad about his initial response.

“I believe that we need to build a country where we welcome everybody, we respect everybody, and I feel bad about what I said,” he said.

“We’re going to have differences of opinions. I want to make it clear: Our whole movement has been about making sure people feel welcome, they feel accepted and people should be accepted no matter what their political views are.”

He also tried to explain his initial response, saying it was less about the people voting Conservative, and more about the policies being put forward by the Conservative Party that he finds distasteful.