VANCOUVER — Internationally renowned author Rupi Kaur officially endorsed federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh in his riding of Burnaby South Saturday afternoon urging Canadians to vote for him.

Kaur — who has more than three million Instagram followers — is a No. 1 New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of two collections of poetry and speaks of themes ranging from love, trauma, healing, femininity and migration.

It is the first celebrity endorsement Canadians have seen for any leader this election.

The two have been longtime friends since their days in Brampton, Ont. And on Saturday, they sat for a one-on-one conversation which ended in an emotional reading by Kaur where she recounted how they met.

Kaur said Singh doesn’t know how to be “anything but real.”

“This has been him long before he ever had the dream of getting into politics. Long before us scrappy teenagers could even conceive of the idea that we would see someone who looks like us running for the highest office of this country,” she said as her voice shook.

She described being afraid and anxious at her very first poetry reading — and ready to leave the room. That was when she met Singh who encouraged her to stay. She called him a mentor, as Singh wiped his eyes.

“It gives me the deepest honour to sit before you today and endorse my brother Jagmeet Singh as Canada’s next prime minister.”

Though each federal leader has visited the province, Singh has been in British Columbia since Tuesday with a focus on Vancouver Island — an area where the NDP swept seats in the 2015 election and are currently fending off the Green party after they took a seat in this year’s byelection.

In the past five days, he’s announced a slew of policies targeting the province specifically, such as protecting the coastline and tackling money-laundering and speculation in the housing market.

Then on Saturday morning, Singh announced that he would make ferry fares cheaper for families by increasing federal funding to BC Ferries by $30 million. At the event with Kaur, Singh told reporters there would be more of the NDP’s transportation platform rolling out soon.

Kaur’s talk with Singh hit all the high notes of the federal NDP policy, including climate goals, Indigenous rights, free tuition, and affordable housing.

Unsurprisingly, climate was the first topic of conversation.

Since the writ dropped, Singh has doubled down on his message about what separates the NDP from the Green party, often repeating a worker-focus on the environment and a woman’s right to choose.

The latter was one of the questions Kaur asked him during their talk.

“I’m super saddened by the fact that it’s even a debate,” Singh responded to why it is an issue. “It’s absurd.”

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Throughout their conversation, there was a pervasive theme on combating hopelessness, as topics ranged from affordability to Quebec’s secularism law.

For instance, when the rise of hate came up, Singh brought up wealth inequality.

“Some of the conditions that allow for hate to grow come back to economic insecurity,” he explained to the crowd. “When we build an economy that works better for everyone, we build a safer society for everyone.”

Singh will be in Surrey, B.C. on Sunday at 1 p.m. for a town hall.

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