Jagmeet Singh is sidestepping questions about political violence. The federal NDP leader says the issue of whether force can be justified to defend Sikh people from oppression is too complex to be answered in a simplistic manner.

Singh made the statement a day after a 2016 video surfaced, showing him at a seminar on Sikh sovereignty where a panelist says violence can help achieve independence. This is the second video to emerge this week showing him at pro-Sikh independence events.

In response, Singh says he has no regrets for attending those events, and explained to CTV’s Question Period, that everyone in the Sikh community knows someone who was killed by government violence.

Singh has yet to denounce the use of political violence, but in a Globe and Mail opinion piece, Singh says he accepts the findings of an inquiry into the Air India bombing in 1985 and condemns all who were behind the horror that killed more than 300 people off the coast of Scotland. That includes Sikh extremist Talwinder Singh Parmar, identified by Canada’s Air India inquiry as the mastermind of the attack.