[3] Singer was born in Austria in 1885 and immigrated to Canada with his family when he was three years old.
He attended Jarvis Collegiate Institute in Toronto and had to pay for his own schooling by selling books and, later, real estate.
In 1920, he chaired a mass meeting of Toronto Jews in Massey Hall expressing loyalty to the British Empire and giving thanks for Britain accepting the Mandate of Palestine.
[5] Singer was active with the Conservative Party in the 1920s and was a critic of the Ontario Temperance Act.
[8] As a result, Singer chose to run in the riding of St. Andrew as an Independent Conservative, opposing the official party nominee William Robertson Flett.