The People’s Party of Canada has formally nominated Whistler resident, Peyman Askari to contest West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country at the next federal election.
A network engineer by profession, Askari was born in Iran and lived in Canada since he was six years old. A first-time candidate, he was lauded by the PPC as “a passionate citizen advocating for the restoration of balance between government and individual responsibility.”
Askari brings a broad set of beliefs centered on personal responsibilities to the campaign.
“He believes deeply that personal responsibilities, like parenting, education, and the running of one’s business, have been increasingly absorbed by provincial and federal governments,” reads the PPC release on his nomination.
“Peyman is committed to reversing this trend, aiming to empower Canadians to take back control of their lives and communities.”
Speaking with Pique Newsmagazine, Askari said he’d felt motivated to get into politics so that the government would get out of everybody’s lives.
“I am running for the People’s Party and I do believe in their platform, but if it wasn’t the People’s Party it would have been something else,” he said, explaining that he felt compelled to get involved however he could.
“Something has changed in Canada. I’ve been here since 1989 and this is not the country that I grew up in. It is almost impossible for grown-ups to do business without the government getting in the middle of it. They want to monitor our payments, everything above $600 - that’s just absurd. That was my motivation, I felt like I had to do something, and the People’s Party accepted me.”
Askari’s views are broadly informed by personal responsibility and self-determination, as evidenced by his campaign website which touches on high-level issues such as immigration (advocating to limit intake to those that align with Canadian values), densification (arguing against densification due to a loss of self-sufficiency), supranational organizations (which he argues Canada must extricate itself from), property rights and more.
“I’m a big supporter of limited government,” he said.
Asked about local issues for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, Askari acknowledged that PPC policies “don’t exactly transcribe” down to local matters, with immigration offered up as an example.
“If you come at it with an anti-immigration message it’s not going to resonate. It’s a tough one but I would say if you want to bring in foreign workers and it suits your business model, that’s fine, but you have to do a cost benefit analysis for how it impacts healthcare for example.”
Askari said that healthcare was a matter he wanted to focus on.
“Right now the healthcare system is kinda getting destroyed, so that’s an area I can focus on and say either we can have a two-tier system or we can have an honest discussion about bringing in this many outsiders, foreigners, this many people that haven’t paid into the healthcare system for decades.”
Askari said that he believed immigration was so high because the Canadian economy had been destroyed by too many regulations, and immigrating rich foreigners allowed the government to recoup taxes.
“Take my family, we’re in property development, it's almost impossible to work now. If you want to cut a tree down, you have to wait for city hall to give you permission to do so, and if they disagree they tell you to put a fence around this tree. It’s gotten to a point where it's not even rewarding for people to work.”
Askari also touched on the issue of vote-splitting, which he said appeared to be pushed by those that wanted to limit change. The PPC has previously been accused of splitting votes away from the Conservative Party, having secured over 840,000 votes in the last federal election.
“When I look at politics and the ‘uniparty’, to me that’s like a cartel,” he said. ‘Uniparty’ is a concept that political parties all serve the same elite vision regardless of affiliation.
“I see that they’ve created a political system where they go to the voters and say ‘don’t split the vote or the opposition will win’, and then they go to the candidates and say ‘you can’t talk about these four or five issues otherwise the other candidate might win’.
“They’ve fully insulated the system from change, and you add to that the media that just crucifies politicians that go one inch to either side of the Overton Window (a range of policy discussion within public acceptance) and it's almost impossible to make change. Going back to why I got involved in the People’s Party, to me they’re more populist and populist basically means you’re not stepping into that ring, I just want to return some sense of normalcy to Canada.”
The next election will mark the third time the PPC has run a candidate in the local riding. In both 2019 and 2021 the party nominated Whistler resident Doug Bebb to represent the party, earning 1.55 and then 3.66 per cent respectively in those elections. Bebb remains associated with the local PPC, serving as an agent for Askari’s campaign.
Askari will go up against incumbent MP, Patrick Weiler of the Liberal Party. Weiler has represented the riding since 2019 with a plurality of the vote, with 33.9 per cent of voters backing him at the 2021 election.
Also in the race is Conservative Party candidate, Keith Roy, who works as a real estate agent in Vancouver, and lives in Whistler.
The next federal election will take place on or before October 20, 2025, though it may take place later, on October 27 due to pending changes to the Canada Elections Act supported by the Liberal Party, the NDP and the Greens but opposed by the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois.
