Eh, Canada: NDP Candidates – The Naked and the Stoned
It's been a bit of a rough patch for Canada's New Democratic Party, which has seen three candidates withdraw from their races in the past week.
Seems nude body painting and pot-smoking contests aren't the platform planks they once were!
Let's find out who fired up and who took it all off…
Dana Larsen (West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast)
Larsen was a founding member of the Marijuana Party of Canada, which was cool. But then reports surfaced that a seed bank he started sells coca (as in cocaine) plant seedlings.
Oh, and someone dug up this old footage of Larsen getting baked, fried and toasted on an online show called Pot TV. (Video after the jump.)
Which is your favorite moment: The one where he lights a mouthful of joints, or the one where he murmurs, "Hey. Look at my foot. Isn't that trippy?"
Kirk Tousaw (Vancouver Quadra)
Like Dana Larsen, Tousaw was forced to quit his race because of a video he made with marijuana activist Mark Emery. In it, Tousaw is taking part in a contest to compare different strains of green.
According to the Vancouver Sun's story, however, Tousaw's civil spirit shines through the smoke: He can be heard saying that "every vote counts," in pot contests as well as federal elections.
Julian West (Saanich-Gulf Islands)
West just withdrew from his race after everyone remembered a little incident in which he took off his clothes in front of some teenagers at an environmental conference and "got too excited during naked body painting," which, let's be honest, we've all been there.
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I had nothing to do with this. This is the fault of Gerry Scott, and these folks were ratted out to the media by a guy named Boris St. Maurice, who works for the Liberal Party.
Pot is a home grown cash crop. Country first.
That's: "Canada, eh?"
So why do they hesitate to accept Obama?
Folks – we are talking about BC and pot is the provincial past time. The party itself supports decriminalization. So it is unfortunate and the leader has said that the vetting process will be reviewed but just so US folks know this is not the campaign killer it would be for a US party. In fact in BC the NDP is polling a close second to the conservatives.
Just when you think we've got a decent chance to put _one_ party forward as being better than Harper's Conservatives, they go and "remember" this stuff. Come on, NDP, vet those candidates a little better before you put them on the national stage, wouldja please?
Canada's pretty decent. Canadian young people in general wonder why the U.S. has any hesitation in accepting Obama.