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Photo by Darryl Dyck/CP

What Singh meant of course was that his critics are white, hence privileged, while he is not. What else could he have meant? Not that they are powerful and he is not. After all he is the leader, and their objection is precisely that he is abusing his power, which they are powerless to stop.

But leave aside Singh, who is quick to resort to racial politics against his opponents. His complaint, transparently false as Cosh demonstrated, draws attention to the astonishing phenomenon of extraordinarily successful Indian immigrants to Canada.

Singh was born in 1979 in Canada to parents who emigrated from India. His father was a psychiatrist, who earned well enough to send his son Jagmeet to a private American high school where current annual tuition runs to more than U.S.$30,000. He went on to Osgoode Hall law school and practiced as a criminal lawyer with his brother before running for office.

He represented a Brampton constituency at Queen’s Park, before making the jump to federal politics. His brother also won a Brampton seat in the recent Ontario election. In Brampton, it is not unusual that all of the major party candidates are immigrants from the subcontinent or children of same.

I too was born in Canada, like Singh, to parents who were immigrants, originally from India (Goa) but through Kenya in my family’s case. My father was a not a medical doctor but had a doctorate in engineering. We were not as rich as the Singh family, and all four children went to Canadian public (Catholic) schools, but we were comfortable. The noted Indian emphasis on education bore fruit. The four of us have a dozen degrees among us. My parents are financially successful, and their children are also affluent, though none of us go in for bespoke tailoring.