Jagmeet Singh, the newly minted leader of the federal NDP, has touched down on the East Coast.
Singh, 38, hosted a meet-and-greet event at Agricola Street bar Lion & Bright on Sunday night. Even as temperatures dropped below freezing, people lined up around the block for a chance to chat with the newest federal leader.
“We call them ‘Jagmeet-and-greets,'” Singh told Global News on Monday. “We had probably 250 people in the venue, maybe more — it was packed.”
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The popularity of the young and charismatic leader of the New Democratic Party prompted comparisons between him and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, something Singh says is a good sign.
“People really want to believe in something, and they want to believe in politics which are going to represent people’s voices and take their issues to Ottawa,” he said.
“I’ve always said I want to tap into that and inspire people.”
The 2015 federal election saw the NDP lose all of their seats in the Atlantic region to a tide of Liberal challengers.
Even the then-deputy leader of the NDP, Megan Leslie, lost her seat in the Halifax riding.
WATCH BELOW: Newly minted NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh makes his first trip to Halifax as the federal party’s leader
But Singh says that he thinks there’s untapped potential in the next election for the party that he now leads, especially since every representative of the region is currently from the Liberal party.
“By not having a representative from the East Coast to actually hold the government to account, I think that people are beginning to see that missing voice,” Singh said.
He added that events like the one in Halifax give him the opportunity to identify issues that will allow the NDP to run candidates in Atlantic Canada who can give people there a voice in Ottawa.