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BRAMPTON — Of all the battleground regions in the entire country, the sprawling Toronto suburb of Brampton was always going to be among the most interesting.

The Greater Toronto Area’s all-important suburban seats are typically a fight between the Liberals and Conservatives. They went almost entirely blue in 2011, when the Conservatives won a majority. In 2015, they went almost entirely Liberal red.

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But in Brampton, the rise of Jagmeet Singh to the NDP’s leadership changes the dynamic considerably. Singh has big name recognition, a strong ground organization and a history of winning elections here. It means that Brampton — with its five crucial seats swept by the Liberals last election — is likely to be a three-way fight this time around.

It's definitely going to be a discussion

That was the case even before the extraordinary scandal that erupted on Wednesday, when images emerged of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau in brownface and blackface. The revelation adds an unexpected twist to the campaign in this fast-growing city of 600,000, where 433,000 are visible minorities (according to 2016 census data). Nearly half the population is South Asian.