The Leader Post recently featured a revealing article about Regina lawyer, activist and federal NDP candidate, Noah Evanchuk (I’d link to the Wikipedia page I created about him but the bastards at Wikipedia think that being a candidate in a federal election isn’t enough to make you notable unless you win the election. Stupid, made even more evident that the Green Party candidate in the same election *does* have a Wikipedia page which was allowed to stand because she was the Leader of the provincial party – even though the party is *much* smaller than the federal NDP and she, herself, got less than a tenth of the votes Evanchuk got.)
Anyhow, there’s a certain level of irony (in the Alanis Morrisette sense of the word) that Noah, who lost his brother to suicide, ran in Palliser, a riding that was previously held by Dave Batters (who helpfully does have a Wikipedia page), who also committed suicide after a long battle with mental illness.
It’s an extremely delicate line between being completely open & transparent and being opportunistic, especially around such a tragic circumstance. But I wonder if the election, which Noah lost by only 800 votes, may have gone differently if people in that riding knew about this unlikely connection between these two seemingly opposite politicians – Batters who served until mental illness took him away and Evanchuk who has dedicated his life to addressing mental health issues because of his own personal experience with the issue.
At any rate, kudos to Noah for speaking out on the issue.
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