Jagmeet Singh has become a ghostly reminder of the Kamloops Kid

The NDP Leader's Unhealthy Obsession with Race

Photo by Joseph Costa on Unsplash

This is a guest post by writer & teacher Mark Hecht.

No, not those kids.

Seventy-five years ago, Canadian born Kanao Inouye was convicted of war crimes and treason for killing eight Canadian prisoners-of-war and sadistically torturing many more during the Second World War. Born in the early 20th century in Kamloops, British Columbia to parents that had emigrated from Japan he became notoriously known as the ‘Kamloops kid.’

History had collided with Inouye at the outbreak of WWII. He’d been studying in Japan and was soon conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army. This was not against his will, mind you. During the post-war trial he stated, “My mind and body belong to the Japanese Emperor.”

His fluent English was what the Japanese military actually wanted. They sent him to work as an interpreter at a prisoner-of-war camp in occupied Hong Kong. It was here that his cruelty first became evident, especially among Canadian POWs. Inouye subjected “white” Canadian prisoners to especially harsh beatings and maltreatment.

During the court proceedings Rifleman William Allister called him, “a monster, driven mad with hate for all things white. His craving for vengeance was awesome.”

In 1944, Inouye went on to work for the Kempeitai—the secret police—who were known for torture, killing and not much else.

Lieutenant Colonel J.C. Stewart stated in court that Inouye had committed such acts of "wanton and barbarous cruelty that it was a mere accident of fate whether the victims survived or not."

Inouye profered an odorous excuse. "When I was in Canada I took all kinds of abuse. ... They called me a little yellow bastard. Now where is your so-called superiority, you dirty scum?”

Discrimination in Canada had clearly hardened him. War gave him an opportunity. He could seek revenge but in doing so, he made the illogical mistake of trying to avenge his hurts, not upon the specific individuals that caused him mental anguish but upon a group of people that represented, to him, a perfectly reasonable target. He chose “white Canadians.”

The Canadian soldiers that endured Inouye’s wrath did not know him personally. They were mostly from Winnipeg and Quebec, not Kamloops.

Perhaps one might feel sorry for Kanao Inouye. He’d been bullied.

The great caution is that psychologically wounded men who have never recovered are, like a wounded dog, dangerous creatures waiting to explode. Inouye exploded in a time of war.

One saving grace, as tragic and ugly as the events were, is that he had power over the lives of only a small group of prisoners. Imagine if a similar man with similar traits had control over an entire nation. We would be wise to take note.

As a boy and young man, Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada was bullied and discriminated against. From his book Love and Courage: My Story of Family, Resilience, and Overcoming the Unexpected, the reader—a discerning reader not easily swayed by the sobs of victimhood awaiting a calculated sympathy—is left with the impression that Singh carries a mindset not too dissimilar from that of Kanao Inouye. It is a narrow, race-based view of the world and what appears to be a deep desire for ‘racial justice’ aimed squarely at “whites.” It is more than troubling.

Singh’s regular reference to some Canadians as “white” can leave the impression that he views the world through the lens of race—a view that few Canadians subscribe to themselves, other than adherents of wokeism and a few Proud Boys.

A few offhanded comments would be of little concern but Jagmeet Singh has made it quite clear that he not only sees the world through the lens of race but would like to enshrine the concept of race into the very fabric of Canadian institutions. In 2020, he strongly supported the idea of collecting “race-based data.” Considering that race does not have a biological basis, it’s uncertain as to what that “race-based data” would actually look like. Would Canada use the arbitrary categories of her neighbour to the south—White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American? Or would we come up with our own socially constructed categories? Or would we adopt the ones they use in Haiti, India or Indonesia?

Singh also supported special monetary advancements for minorities based on skin colour.

His obsession with race however, reached new heights in October of 2020 when he tweeted that, “Conservatives have endorsed a convoy led by those that claim the superiority of the white bloodline.”

It was a rather bizarre tweet, especially considering that few Canadians actually believe in a white bloodline any more than they believe in an orange bloodline or some other colour for that matter. The leaders of the Trucker Convoy, whatever their personal beliefs may be, did not advocate any such notion of a white bloodline during their protest against government-imposed vaccine mandates. The only one to posit a white bloodline position was Singh himself.

It was not a lone tweet. Endless references to “whites” and “white supremacy” have filled Singh’s social media pages for years.

Race-based views of the world tend, unfortunately, to be accompanied by favoritism toward a particular ethnic or racial group. On July 6, 2022 Jagmeet Singh showed favourtism and a disturbing disconnect when he championed Sikhs as the victims of discrimination in regard to a clean shave requirement by the City of Toronto. Yet earlier, he had been supporting the discrimination of all Canadians who opposed vaccine mandates.

It may be too much to say that Singh has a hatred of “whites” and wants revenge in the same way Kanao Inouye did. That would be pushing the boundaries of opinion pieces, such as this is. But Singh’s repetitive focus and drive on racial justice and white supremacy is still troubling nonetheless.

One of the great truisms of life is that if you want to know what someone is planning to do, read what they wrote and listen to what they say. Hitler wrote down everything he was going to do, as have many killers, despots, tyrants, and murderous revolutionaries.

From his speeches and writings, Singh appears increasingly to be the ghost of Inouye’s past.

It does not help that Singh’s authoritarian side was exposed when he coerced Canadians into taking pharmaceutical drugs. “There would be consequences for those who are…not willing to do that,” he said in August of 2021.

The less than subtle obsession with race alongside Singh’s authoritarian tendencies, have such close parallels to the Kamloops Kid that now might be the time to start worrying. It’s not unreasonable to ask if the ghost of Inouye’s past has returned?

Let’s hope not.

The Kamloops Kid was hanged seventy-five years ago today on August 27, 1947.

Mark Hecht is a writer based in Victoria, BC. He taught geography at Mount Royal University. As a writer his works can be found in Areo magazine, The Canadian Journal and Merion West among others.