Members of Toronto's Sri Lankan community rally in Scarborough against country's president

Dozens of members of Toronto's Sri Lankan community protested in Scarborough on Saturday, calling for the country's president to step down.

Protesters gathered on the sidewalk near the intersection of Ellesmere and Markham roads, waving flags, holding signs and shouting slogans. Drivers honked their horns as they passed by signs with slogans like "Let's defeat the oppressive government" and "Enough is enough."

The Scarborough rally was in solidarity with protests held in Sri Lanka in recent weeks, where thousands have demonstrated against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his government.

Those protesters accuse Rajapaksa of mismanaging the country's worst economic crisis since it achieved independence from the British Empire in 1948.

"The country has no gas, no milk, no petrol, no electricity. People are suffering," said Alex Fernando, a Toronto resident who attended the Scarborough rally. "[President Rajapaksa] destroyed the country. He must get out."

Months of shortages

For months, Sri Lankans have stood in long lines to buy fuel, cooking gas, food and medicine, most of which come from abroad and are paid for in hard currency. The fuel shortage has caused rolling power outages lasting several hours a day.

The Indian Ocean island nation is on the brink of bankruptcy, saddled with a $25 billion US foreign debt over the next five years — nearly $7 billion of which is due this year alone — and dwindling foreign reserves. Talks with the International Monetary Fund are expected later this month, and the government has turned to China and India for emergency loans to buy food and fuel.

Much of the anger expressed by weeks of growing protests has been directed at Rajapaksa and his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who head an influential clan that has been in power for most of the past two decades.

Five other family members are lawmakers, three of whom resigned as ministers last Sunday.

Another protester during Saturday's rally said anger at the president extends across ethnic and religious lines.

"We urge the Rajapaksa family to step down and let the Sri Lankan people decide what they want," they said. "The whole country has one voice right now: step down and go home."

 Rajapaksa, who was elected in 2019, has remained steadfast in refusing to resign, even after most of his cabinet quit and loyal lawmakers rebelled, narrowing a path for him to seek a way out as his team prepares to negotiate with international lending institutions.

 Rajapaksa earlier proposed the creation of a unity government following the cabinet resignations, but the main opposition party rejected the idea.