| Vijay Thanigasalam | |
| Honorific-Suffix: | MPP |
| Office1: | Ontario Associate Minister of Housing |
| Term Start1: | June 6, 2024 |
| Office2: | Ontario Associate Minister of Transportation |
| Term Start2: | September 22, 2023 |
| Term End2: | June 6, 2024 |
| Office3: | Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Infrastructure |
| Term Start3: | June 29, 2022 |
| Term End3: | September 22, 2023 |
| Minister3: | Kinga Surma |
| Office4: | Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Transportation |
| Term Start4: | June 26, 2019 |
| Term End4: | June 1, 2022 |
| Minister4: | Caroline Mulroney |
| Parliament5: | Ontario Provincial |
| Term Start5: | June 7, 2018 |
| Predecessor5: | Riding established |
| Riding5: | Scarborough—Rouge Park |
| Party: | Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario |
| Birth Date: | 8 March 1989 |
| Birth Place: | Jaffna |
| Residence: | Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario |
| Alma Mater: | Ontario Tech |
| Honorific Prefix: | The Honourable |
| Predecessor1: | Rob Flack |
| Premier1: | Doug Ford |
| Predecessor2: | Todd McCarthy |
| Successor2: | Position abolished |
| Premier2: | Doug Ford |
Vijay Thanigasalam is a Canadian politician who has been the Ontario associate minister of housing since 2024 and the member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Scarborough—Rouge Park since 2018, representing the Ontario Progressive Conservative (PC) Party. He was previously the Ontario associate minister of transportation. Thanigasalam is the first Tamil-Canadian to sit in the provincial cabinet in Ontario.
Born in 1989 in Valvettithurai, Sri Lanka, Thanigasalam escaped the Sri Lankan Civil War to India with his mother and elder brother at the age of seven, later immigrated to Canada at the age of 14.[1] He attended St. Joan of Arc Catholic Academy (then known as Jean Vanier Catholic Secondary School) while working multiple part-time jobs. At this time, he began to get involved and volunteer with many community organizations in Scarborough. He went on to study at the University of Toronto Scarborough and completed his Bachelor of Commerce in Finance at Ontario Tech University. After graduation, Thanigasalam worked in banking jobs at CIBC and RBC.[2]
In June 2018, during the run up to the 2018 Ontario general election, Thanigasalam as an Ontario PC Party candidate apologized after his party was asked by the Global News to comment on Thanigasalam support for Velupillai Prabhakaran, former leader of the Tamil Tigers, a group that had been branded by the Canadian government as a terrorist group that had used Canada as a key support base.[3] [2] On June 7, 2018, Thanigasalam was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as the Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Scarborough—Rouge Park. In 2019, he was named Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Transportation. In this capacity, Thanigasalam and his government announced the building of the Scarborough Subway Extension, which is currently under construction.[4]
He also secured funding for the Tamil Community Centre within his riding of Scarborough—Rouge Park, which has the highest concentration of Tamil Canadians in Canada.[5]
In 2022, Thanigasalam supported the provincial government’s $1 billion plan to revitalize the Scarborough Health Network’s aging infrastructure. The funding includes a new emergency department at Centenary Hospital and a complete redevelopment of the Birchmount Hospital.[6] Thanigasalam was also instrumental in announcing the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health (SAMIH) at the University of Toronto Scarborough, the first ever medical school in Scarborough. This is the largest expansion of an undergraduate and postgraduate medical school in Toronto since 1843.[7]
Thanigasalam was re-elected in the 2022 Ontario general election and subsequently named Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Infrastructure.
In September 2023, Thanigasalam was appointed Associate Minister of Transportation.[8] As Associate Minister, Thanigasalam was responsible for implementing the Ontario One Fare Program and made progress on the resumption of revenue service on the Ontario Northland Railway.[9]
On June 6, 2024, Thanigasalam was appointed Associate Minister of Housing as part of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.[10]
In February 2024, Thanigasalam implemented Ontario’s One Fare Program alongside Premier Doug Ford, which eliminated double-fares between the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and participating regional transit agencies in the Greater Toronto Area, including GO Transit.[11] The announcement of the program was immediately very popular across the region as it would save the average transit rider $1600 per year, which received widespread support from transit advocates.[12] The program went into effect on February 26, 2024, less than one month after the initial announcement.
In 2019, Thanigasalam introduced Bill 104, Tamil Genocide Education Week Act, which proposed a seven-day period ending on May 18 (which marks the Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day) to be recognized as Tamil Genocide Education Week in Ontario. The bill passed and received royal assent on May 12, 2021. The bill recognizes how Tamil-Ontarian families “have been physically or mentally traumatized by the genocide that the Sri Lankan state perpetrated against the Tamils during the civil war which lasted from 1983 to 2009, and especially so in May 2009".[13]
Bill 104 is the first time that claims of the Tamil Genocide were officially recognized by a government in the Tamil diaspora. This was significant for the Tamil community in Canada and across the world.[14]
Thanigasalam talking of his own childhood experiences during the war stated that the law "passage into law would help the Tamil-Canadian community start the healing of wartime trauma and assure them one government understands their pain".[1]