THE Canadian Press says that it has learned that Ontario MPP Jagmeet Singh (Bramalea-Gore-Malton), who is Ontario NDP deputy leader, is expected to announce his bid for the federal NDP leadership at Brampton’s Bombay Palace on Monday.

Jagmeet was in Surrey last week to give the NDP candidates a boost.

Last February, we reported that the Toronto Star said their sources told  them that Jagmeet had put in place a team that was “quietly organizing” for him for the leadership bid, though he told the newspaper that he hadn’t yet decided anything.

A year ago, he told the National Post: “If there was a grassroots movement then I would seriously consider it. I haven’t committed to anything, nor have I closed the door to anything.”

When Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath appointed Jagmeet as Deputy Leader of the party in April 2015, making him the first turbaned Sikh to hold such a position in Canadian politics, it was generally assumed that he would give up any federal ambition.

But with the federal NDP’s poor performance in the October 2015 federal election and Tom Mulcair deciding to quit as leader, apparently Jagmeet had second thoughts.

Jagmeet became the first turbaned Sikh MPP in Ontario, in 2011 – after losing to Conservative Bal Gosal in the federal election.

He earned his B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Western Ontario in 2001 and his LL.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in 2005.  He was called to the Bar of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 2006.

Prior to joining public office he was a trial lawyer practicing in the Brampton and Mississauga area.

According to Wikipedia, Jagmeet Singh “was born in Scarborough, Toronto as the oldest of the four children of Punjabi immigrants: his father Jagtaran Singh Dhaliwal, a psychiatrist and his mother, Harmeet Kaur Dhaliwal, a teacher.

“Singh briefly lived in Punjab, India before returning to Canada when his father enrolled in a medical school in Newfoundland, where the family stayed for five years. Singh’s family then settled in Windsor, Ontario where he grew up. Singh attended a private high school in Detroit, Detroit Country Day School, in Beverly Hills, Michigan, graduating in 1997.”