The release of the 2011 census on Wednesday revealed that Canada's population has grown to just shy of 33.5 million people, news that may surprise NDP MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan.
Speaking on human rights abuses in Sri Lanka at the Canadian Human Rights Voice (CHRV) conference last week, the MP for Scarborough-Rouge River declared that Canada is 9 million strong "standing together to fight for human rights."
In the full version of the video, a member of the audience quickly corrects Sitsabaiesan and she reacts by saying she was thinking of "the people that came out and voted in the past election." Canadians cast approximately 14.8 million ballots during the 2011 federal vote. You can see the exchange in the video below starting at 3:30.
Sitsabaiesan made headlines last year when her cleavage was photoshopped out of her parliamentary profile. To this day, the profile still features the photoshopped image.
We hope Sitsabaiesan's mistake was just the result of nerves, rather than a lack of knowledge about her country. The Globe and Mail has described her as "the most compelling of the new crop of young NDP MPs," and we hope her potential shines through in the coming months.
In the meantime, she may want to spend some time studying those new census figures.
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