Youthful confidence wins the day in engaged riding of Scarborough-Rouge River
New Democrat Rathika Sitsabaiesan admits she is still “feeling a little numb” about her historic victory in Scarborough-Rouge River on Monday night. As the first Tamil elected to Parliament, she says she is also humbled. The 29-year-old first-time candidate came to Canada with her family when she was 5. “My parents are very, very proud,” she said Tuesday morning after a night of celebration with throngs of supporters at her Sheppard Ave. campaign office and later with New Democrats from across the city at NDP Leader Jack Layton’s victory party downtown. Despite “still trying to absorb it all,” the advocate for workers, students and newcomers says she wasn’t surprised by her win. The ethnically diverse riding in the city’s northeast end has a large youth population and one of the GTA’s largest concentrations of Tamils. “But it was the entire community of Scarborough-Rouge River that came together for this,” said Sitsabaiesan, who moved to the riding several years ago after completing a master’s degree in industrial relations at Queen’s University.