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“It’s my sincere hope that we will see, in near future, a Supreme Court Justice from a First Nation, Metis or Inuit background.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Singh said there needs to be an understanding of the unique situation Indigenous communities have faced and a recognition of Indigenous languages.

“I would say in general our position as a party is that we support bilingualism,” Singh said.

“It’s important as a nation that has two official languages that we support bilingualism with respect to judges but there is a specific case to be made for the Indigenous community.”

The remarks touched off pushback from NDP MPs.

“That is not a position of the NDP,” Quebec lieutenant Alexandre Boulerice said. “He knows it … but we are ready to work with anybody from the Aboriginal community to … see how we can integrate more efficiently Aboriginal languages.”

NDP justice critic Murray Rankin said Singh’s original comments were not in keeping with the NDP’s position stipulating judges must be bilingual to sit on Canada’s top court. The party’s official languages critic had put forward a private members’ bill to enshrine the bilingual requirement into law but it was defeated.

“We are trying essentially deal with two streams of rights,” Rankin said.

“The need to be more representative, particularly for the Indigenous … legal traditions on the court and at the same time, an ironclad commitment to bilingualism which the NDP has long had as its policy.”