Voters in Chatham-Kent-Leamington have another choice in the Oct. 21 federal election if they’re not convinced by the candidates backed by larger parties.

Toronto resident Paul Coulbeck of the Marijuana Party of Canada is running in the riding. A national organizer for the party, he said despite the work of the Liberal Party, cannabis hasn’t really been legalized.

“If you’re smoking pot and it’s not their genetics, it’s illegal pot,” he said. “They’ve closed down all kinds of shops and people who were there for years serving the medical community, and they’ve closed down these places after they did this legalization.”

The party’s platform would repeal the Cannabis Act, which made the substance legal in October 2018. The candidate said they would replace the act with something else.

“I think cannabis should be as legal as tomatoes or strawberries or any of that other stuff and we let the farmers take care of it and then we educate the children that they shouldn’t be drinking and smoking pot at the same time,” he said.

A former candidate in his own riding, Coulbeck said he felt the party should have someone running “in a riding (with) the best growing area.”

He said he tried to reach out to celebrities like Tommy Chong and Mike Smith, who played Bubbles on Trailer Park Boys, to convince them to run, but he never received a response.

Cannabis production will be a “big boom” for the area, he said, adding he’s been looking at moving to the riding.

“It’s an industrial paradigm shift away from filthy, dirty petro-chemicals to clean, safe cannabis,” he said. “Almost everything you can make with petro-chemicals, you can make with cannabis.”

Coulbeck is originally from Winnipeg. He lived briefly in Charing Cross in 1978 and spent many years in London with his wife, before she received a job at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.

The 71-year-old said he has worked with different grow-ops and has helped set up dispensaries. He is also a minister with the Cannabis Church of the Universe.

Coulbeck said he also wants to promote the medicinal benefits of cannabis and believes the plant – before it is heated to cause intoxication – should be encouraged as part of people’s diets.

He also said the government should highlight the environmental benefits of growing cannabis, noting scientists planted hemp at Chernobyl to clean up the soil.

The Marijuana Party’s platform also includes establishing proportional representation; keeping cannabis from being put back on the banned substances list; abolishing personal income tax; restoring the Bank of Canada as the only source of national borrowing; instituting a national bank account and credit card for Canadians at birth; and condemning compound interest rates.

Coulbeck said the platform “makes the government more into a public utility instead of our masters.”

He said he also wants to focus on building proper accommodations for migrant workers and find a way to address the worker shortage experienced in the riding.

“I speak for the riding, not the party,” said Coulbeck. “I don’t have a party, really. There’s maybe 30 of us in the whole party across the country. I’ll need the people who are there to work with me.”

Also running in Chatham-Kent-Leamington are John Balagtas for the People’s Party, Dave Epp for the Conservative Party, Katie Omstead for the Liberal Party, Mark Vercouteren for the Green Party and Tony Walsh for the NDP.