Posted on 01/19/2006 10:04:22 PM PST by CarrotAndStick
TORONTO: Like many Canadians, Ghazanfar Khan feels his country is far too much under US influence. The 24-year-old man of Pakistani origin, standing for next week's general election, wants to do something to change things.
A debut candidate in the January 23 ballot, Khan has a definite agenda for Canada and feels that his country should carve out its own identity that is separate from its superpower neighbour to the south.
Instead of jumping on the bandwagon of major parties like the Liberals or the Conservatives, Khan is with the Canadian Action Party, a little-known entity but one he believes represents his principles.
"We want to stop integration with the US. We want to preserve our sovereignty and protect our civil liberties, which means terminating all forms of surveillance and fingerprinting," Khan said.
"We feel the anti-terrorism law does not apply to Canada," said Khan, who was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and came to this country when he was in Class 6.
"We want genuine electoral reform and proportional representation. We want to ensure well equipped armed forces and to promote peace and not take unilateral action," he emphasised, pointing a finger at the US invasion of Iraq.
Ideologically, Khan said, "we come closest to the New Democratic Party." The NDP is considered left of centre in Canada's political scenario.
The engineering student is running from Calgary East constituency in the province of Alberta. One of his opponents is Indo-Canadian incumbent Deepak Obhrai of the Conservative Party.
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Go Deepak!
Instead of jumping on the bandwagon of major parties like the Liberals or the Conservatives, Khan is with the Canadian Action Party, a little-known entity but one he believes represents his principles.
1. Rats! The guy has tumbled our secret imperialist plot to subjugate Canada. To the hydrofoils, back to our secret lair.
2. Oh good. He is with the Canadian Action Party--he has absolutely no chance of winning with a party name like that. Canadian Action is an oxymoron. And Mr. Khan is just a moron.
3. Not surprisingly, Mr. Khan's platform is to make Canada even more of a national security sieve than it already is.
If you don't want to secure your borders that's okay with me. We'll secure our borders with you instead. I'm sure you won't mind if your imports into this country take a week or more to go through security inspections... I think you ought to really show us and stop trading with us all together... That will really show us your desire to stand apart... Have at it...
Here are the results from Calgary East in the last election:
Deepak Obhrai/Conservative Party of Canada/21,897
James Maxim/Liberal Party of Canada/7,621
Elizabeth Thomas/New Democratic Party/3,535
Dean Kenneth Christie/Green Party of Canada/2,529
Jason Corey Devine/Communist Party of Canada/245
Somehow I don't think this guy is much of a threat...
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