Stuart Parker is a Canadian political exile, currently residing in Tanzania. He left Canada in 2023 after being the subject of a three-year campaign of neo-McCarthyite blacklisting that effectively put an end to his career, romantic relationship, four in five of his friendships and all of his savings.
Stuart was born in 1972 and, as a young man, served as founding chairman of the Green Party of British Columbia’s youth wing (1988-92) and then as the party’s leader 1993-2000. Most of his political activity was not as a Green but as an activist in the New Democratic Party (1985-88, 2001-18), which singled him out as the first-ever party member banned from seeking nomination as a candidate in 2010, due to his dissident views within the organization. After quitting the NDP over its $6 billion in new fossil fuel subsidies to transnational oil companies to build an export terminal for fracked natural gas, he attempted to organize the BC Ecosocialist Party, serving as its leader for less than a month before it disbanded at the end of 2020.
Stuart is a peer-reviewed and published historian of American religion specializing in the Latter-day Saint (i.e. Mormon) denominations. He received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 2010, after which time he worked as a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer until 2021. He has held positions at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, the University of Northern BC, Thompson Rivers University, Brigham Young University, British Columbia Institute of Technology, University of the Fraser Valley and the University of Toronto. He has been published by Sport in Society, Journal of Mormon History and University of New Mexico Press and has held minor positions in the Rocky Mountain Council on Latin American Studies and the American Society for Theatre Research.
Stuart was one of the most prolific and longstanding activists for proportional representation in Canada, having served as a director of Fair Voting BC, the BC Electoral Change Coalition, Fair Vote Canada and the Toronto Democracy Initiative. He served on the “yes” committee in the 1996 Vancouver, 2005 British Columbia, 2007 Ontario, 2009 BC and 2018 BC referendum campaigns (more than any other Canadian), although he resigned from the BC committee months before the referendum date, alleging the committee was government-controlled and deliberately trying to lose.
Stuart is also known for his social justice and environmental activism. He was arrested in logging road blockades in Clayoquot Sound in 1993 and the Slocan Valley in 1997. From 1988-90, he led a successful nation-wide boycott of McDonald’s Restaurants over their use of ozone-damaging foam packaging.
In 2012, he and a committee of scholars and activists founded Los Altos Institute, the socialist think tank for which these volumes of his writing have been produced.
Stuart’s collected essays are now available (volume 1 & 2 are here; look for volume 3 & 4 at the end of March)
What People Are Saying…
Stuart Parker is a fresh and unclassifiable voice on the Canadian scene, who brings great learning, a distinctive perspective, and a vigorous prose style to every topic he touches. He is always worth reading, even when you disagree.
– Jack Cunningham, Trinity College, University of Toronto
British Columbians are notorious for electing the politicians we deserve rather than those we need. Fittingly, Parker’s unblemished record of life-long political defeat should endear him to us all as one of the bravest, most principled and insightful political representatives we never had. His insights into the history and culture of British Columbia are forged by his unshakable commitment to civic participation and dogged refusal to stay down when knocked. Through it all, he never stopped writing while fighting and we’re gifted with this collection as a result. We ignore it at our peril.
– Aaron Ekman, former Secretary Treasurer of the BC Federation of Labour and Chair of the UNBC Board of Governors.
Stuart possesses a brave voice of reason alongside the ability to get across esoteric ideas in a captivating manner. He’s not beholden to anything but curiosity and truth. It’s no surprise, then, that his essays span Honey Boo Boo to philosophy to the taboo ideas, like gender, that beckon modern cancellation mobs. His essays are a delight.
– Amy Eileen Hamm; Women’s rights activist, journalist and free speech advocate