Images and links circulating on social media appear to show a Toronto Star headline about a financial scandal involving Jagmeet Singh, the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP). But the newspaper’s public editor said it never published the story, which misappropriates an image from a genuine report published in 2023.
“NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s political career is over after money-making scandal erupts live on air,” says text over a photo published August 6, 2024 on X.
Different versions of the supposed Toronto Star headline circulated across Facebook and X. Posts on the latter platform spread similar claims and articles about a television microphone capturing the NDP leader divulging details about a scandal.
Singh is a member of Parliament for Burnaby South in British Columbia and has been the leader of the NDP since 2017 (archived here and here). The social democratic party holds the fourth-highest number of seats in the Canadian House of Commons but has been in a “confidence and supply” agreement with the more centrist Liberals, who in 2021 won a third mandate to form a minority government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
While Singh is often the subject of Canadian political reporting, AFP could find no trace of the article about a money-making scandal involving the leader.
Toronto Star Public Editor Donovan Vincent, who wrote about other fake screenshots in a May 2024 column, confirmed in an August 21 email that the headline “is indeed a fake ad using our logo.”
None of the links shared online lead to reporting about the politician. While many now redirect to error pages, the US fact-checking website Lead Stories reported some once resembled the Toronto Star website.
A reverse image search for the photo of Singh shared online similarly does not lead to reporting about a financial scandal.
Rather, the party leader’s attire and the background correspond with an interview Singh gave to CTV anchor Vassy Kapelos on June 6, 2023 (archived here, here and here).
The fake Toronto Star screenshot includes the chyron: “Why is the Government keeping this program a secret?”
However, CTV shared its interview with titles such as “Jagmeet Singh one-on-one” and “Will Singh force an election over interference?” — a reference to allegations of foreign vote meddling at the time.
The actual interview does not include the purported incident of Singh speaking without realizing his microphone was live.
AFP has previously debunked fake screenshots from Canadian news outlets and scams misusing the likenesses of some of the country’s politicians and television anchors.
