Laurin Liu
Rivière-des-Mille-Îles 45° 40' 53.33" N, 73° 41' 41.31" W Politics Person
Laurin Liu, MP (traditional Chinese: 劉舒雲; simplified Chinese: 刘舒云; Jyutping: Lau Syu Wan, born November 13, 1990) is a Canadian politician who was elected to the House of Commons of Canada in the 2011 federal election. She represents the electoral district of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles as a member of the New Democratic Party. She is the youngest female Member of Parliament in Canadian history.
She was one of five candidates, alongside Mylène Freeman, Matthew Dubé, Charmaine Borg and Jamie Nicholls, who were McGill University students when elected in the 2011 election following the NDP's unexpected mid-campaign surge in Quebec. At the time of her election, she was pursuing a double major in History and Cultural Studies. She was active on campus as a board member of CKUT radio, a representative to the CKUT Programming Committee, an employee of McGill university's undergraduate student union, and a staff member of the McGill Daily.
Liu was raised in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. Prior to attending McGill, she was a student at Royal West Academy and Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf. At Jean-de-Brébeuf, she became politically active by founding the NDP campus club. She later moved on to be co-president of the youth wing of the Quebec section of the NDP.
Liu, whose parents came to Canada from China in the 1980s, is fluent in French, English and Cantonese.
MP for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles[edit]
Liu had not expected to win, and spent most of the campaign helping NDP Quebec lieutenant Thomas Mulcair win reelection. She was working in a polling station in Mulcair's Outremont riding as an NDP scrutineer[10] when a friend texted her that she was leading Bloc Québécois incumbent Luc Desnoyers.
Ultimately, she crushed Desnoyers by a staggering 11,000-vote margin. By comparison, no NDP candidate had finished higher than fourth since the riding's creation in 1997, and all previous NDP challengers had gotten below the 10% necessary for their expenses to be refunded. At the age of 20 years, 196 days, Liu became the youngest woman in Canadian history to be elected to Parliament. She is the second-youngest MP in the 41st parliament, after Pierre-Luc Dusseault.
Liu was named deputy critic for the environment.[11] In this capacity, she represented the NDP at the December 2011 conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa, where she denounced the Conservatives' environmental policies. In the 2012 NDP leadership race following the death of Jack Layton, Liu supported Peggy Nash.
Following the accession of Thomas Mulcair as party leader, Liu was named deputy critic for science and technology.