At the Festival of South Asia 2009

This is one of my favourite cultural festivals in a riding known for its diversity and wonderful cultural events.

South Asia offers a lot of delicious options for vegetarians like me, so my family often goes to the Gerrard India Bazaar to explore the restaurants there even outside of festival times.

But the festival is a great opportunity to get little samples of food from a range of restaurants.  There were also free henna tattoos on offer, booths full of colourful bargains and of course a wonderful show to see all night.

In anticipation of this year’s festival, I went out with my friend Anjali and purchased a green salwar kameez.

The festival itself was better than ever this year — with wonderful music, lively dancing and the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen.  The people were wonderfully friendly and supportive when I introduced myself to them as the local Green Party candidate.  I ran into a number of friends.

At one stage I ran into Peter Tabuns and Paula Fletcher.  They may not be from the same party but they are currently the elected representatives here and I hope to work well with both of them when I’m elected.  Not too surprisingly, we tend to agree on a wide range of topics.

Peter Tabuns has been a leader within the NDP on both climate and energy issues, the very issues I’m strong on, and we’ve worked well together in fighting the Portlands Energy Centre and in promoting green energy.

Paula Fletcher was also involved in the PEC fight and took on an even larger role in fighting the Big Box development on Eastern Avenue.

We stayed until well past dark until my kids with bellies full to bursting trudged back home happily exhausted.

What a great day and a wonderful change of pace from meeting people at their doors.