Meh, I wouldn't brush aside this so easily. You don't have to be a full blown bigot to be affected by bias. Most people have unconscious bias that tilt their opinion one way or another. A white woman would face extra barriers... so you can safely bet a guy from the ethnicity that has some people literally saying that we have "allowed in too much of" will face a hasher hill to climb. Though I also agree that this isn't the main reason the NDP didn't go well, it's probably a minor contributing factor.

How many times have I heard a phrase containing "these brown people" out loud in the last year? Not many. But not zero. And if I could also hear peoples subconscious thoughts, it would probably have been way more than we'd like to admit.

As a visible minority ... I'm Indigenous Canadian ... most of Canada is still bigoted. It's not as bad as it was 50 years ago or even 20 years ago but it is still very bigoted and racist towards any visible minorities. The difference in our modern world is that the discrimination is more subtle, hidden and discrete ... it's an attitude that is literally baked in the system and fabric of society. I don't get treated negatively or with an racism in my life but from time to time, those attitudes do appear and I am always aware of them.

I'm in northern Ontario and as much as there are a lot of NDP lovers up here, the majority of them still hold Native people in contempt and with negative attitudes .... we're always seen as either incapable of helping ourselves and worthless, while also being seen as people living with free-for-all social welfare. People want to be us but also despise or ridicule actual full blooded Native people living on their lands. They simultaneously see us as powerless while at the same time having too much control or influence over resource development. We either have no money or not allowed to make money for ourselves. Government still has a very hard time balancing between managing our complaints and allowing us enough control to not disturb their corporate friends .... which when you think about it has always been the role of government in Native affairs.

The cities might not show their bigots and intolerance so easily .... but in the rural, northern and remote areas, it still very much the same it was decades ago.

I like and respect him as a politician, but is he NDP-leaning? He strikes me as more centre.

Yeah, he's doing great!

Regardless of how he may have turned his life around, I don't think Canada is ready for a federal leader with a previous criminal record.