A viral set of videos and photos on social media are being shared with a claim that they show Indian origin Canadian Parliamentarian Jagmeet Singh celebrating after being appointed as the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada.
This, however, is a false claim. Jagmeet Singh is NOT the deputy Prime Minister Canada. He is the leader of the New Democratic Party and is serving as a member of the Canadian Parliament for the riding of Burnaby South since 2019.
Claim
The aforementioned video is being widely circulated on Facebook with a claim which reads: “Heartiest Congratulations on Jagmeet Singh becoming the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. He is first Sikh in world to become Deputy Prime Minister of any country in world. (sic)”
Interestingly, the same claim had earlier gone viral on Twitter in October 2019.
What We Found
Jagmeet Singh scripted history in March 2019 when he made his debut in the Canadian Parliament as the first non-white leader of a major opposition party in the country. Again, in October 2019, he was among the 18 Sikh leaders who were elected to the Canadian Parliament’s lower house, the House of Commons.
Even in his Twitter bio, Singh mentions that he is the leader of Canada's New Democratic Party.
We searched on Google to find out if Singh was appointed as the country’s deputy Prime Minister as claimed in the viral post. This, however, turned out to be false as Chrystia Freeland currently holds that post.
Next, we fragment the video in multiple keyframes and followed it up with a reverse image search. This helped us find a longer version of the same video uploaded by Global News — a Canada-based news network — on YouTube.
According to the description of the video dated 22 October 2019, it is from a post-poll speech by the politician.
Evidently, a false message is being circulated with an unrelated video to claim that Jagmeet Singh has been appointed as the new deputy Prime Minister of Canada.
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