New NDP MP says win unexpected, but ready for the challenge

Mylène Freeman, the newly-elected candidate for New Democratic Party in Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel, is the first to admit her sweep of the riding this week was unexpected.

At age 22, Freeman will be one of the youngest members of parliament to sit in the House of Commons when Parliament resumes later this month - something the recent McGill University graduate said is "exciting, but it's also moving into a completely different way of life."

"I feel it's kind of obvious that I didn't expect it," Freeman said during a telephone interview from Montreal this week. "I mean, running against [Bloc Québécois MP] Mario Laframboise, even as we were going up in the polls, I could not predict that.

"I thought I would come as a close second. It comes as a shock, but I'm happy and humbled to be representing Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel and it's going to be a lot of work."

Like much of the voting pattern across Quebec on Monday, May 2 - one that brought the NDP to official opposition status with 102 seats in Parliament - Freeman secured the riding with a landslide 44-per-cent share of the vote.

With 25,268 votes, she beat the veteran incumbent candidate by almost 9,000 votes.

A native of Stouffville, Ontario, a town located 50 kilometres northeast of Toronto, the fluently-bilingual Freeman said she moved to Montreal several years ago to study political philosophy and political theory at McGill University.

"I've always felt much more at home in Quebec," she explained. "Getting into McGill was a great experience, one that prepared me to work hard and think critically."

And though she has some family in Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel and had visited the region as a youth, the candidate was virtually invisible in the riding during the election campaign. She did not participate in an all-candidates debate in late April, travel door-to-door, or put up election signs.

As an MP, she will earn $157,000 a year and represent the voters of Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel. A change, to be sure, from her most recent position: "I finished my exams within the first week of the campaign. It's a very quick transition, but I'm fully feeling 100-per-cent there."