ELECTION PROFILE: BOB ERB, MARIJUANA PARTY

His long black hair is tied back in a pony tail and he sports a B.C.
Marijuana Party button with the party's insignia emblazoned on it - a
bright green marijuana leaf.

"I'm not a politician," says Bob Erb. "I'm just a pissed off
taxpayer."

He's been arrested a dozen times and has faced upwards of 30 marijuana
related charges.

"Legalizing marijuana doesn't mean you condone it. It's a lifestyle
issue not a legal issue," said Erb.

Erb was born into a prominent farming family in Weyburn, Saskatchewan
on July 1, 1952.

Erb and his childhood friends couldn't afford the 10 cents hockey
pucks cost back then so they opted to make the small black discs
themselves - out of cow dung.

"We used to clear the dugout off," said Erb, "and then we'd find a
piece of cow poop and wrap it up with electrical tape."

In 1960 the Erb family - Bob, his older brother and younger sister
along with mom and dad - moved to Florida for two years.

Erb recalls being an eight-year-old boy on his school's playground
with a chain link fence that stretched down the centre, physically
separating the white kids from the blacks and Hispanics.

One day he walked over to the fence to see the kids on the other
side.

"The teacher would say, 'hey, we're playing ball over here,'" says
Erb.

The message was clear.

Just as the Erb family moved back to Canada the school began
desegregation.

Back in Saskatchewan the steady cycle of chores and school started
once again. At 16 Erb became antsy. He wanted to experience city life
so he dropped out of school part way through Grade 11 and headed for
Edmonton.

His parents moved to Terrace that same year.

After nearly a year of working odd jobs Erb decided to visit his
parents.

"I got on a Greyhound bus at 8 a.m. in Edmonton. It was minus 40
degrees Fahrenheit. When I got to Terrace the next day it was plus 40
degrees Fahrenheit," said Erb.

That was all it took.

In the mid-70s Erb married Sherry. He says she had a troubled life but
found some stability in the six-years-older Erb. They had two
children, Audrey Rose and B.J.

"She was the love of my life," recalls Erb. But after 17 years of
marriage the couple separated and eventually divorced. He said Sherry
had a drug abuse problem.

"It was a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking decision," said Erb. He then
took on the role of both father and mother to his two young kids.

He would get up at the crack of dawn to take Audrey to the Terrace
aquatic centre where she trained with the Bluebacks swim club for
almost nine years.

He served as the vice president of finance for the club for two
years.

In between swim meets he'd shuttle his son back and forth between
school, T-ball practice and hockey games.

It doesn't take long to see that Erb loves being a dad. He places a
piece of paper on his kitchen table. He's showing off a little bit -
Audrey made the honour roll and he couldn't be more proud.

The family was shaken in 1998 when Sherry went to the hospital
emergency room early in the morning of Feb. 21 and said she was going
to jump off the new bridge, says Erb.

After a few hours staff determined, said Erb, that she was just
looking for a place to stay.

"She left that hospital at 5:30 in the morning. She came back six
hours later in a body bag," he says.

It's a sign, he says, of a health care system in desperate need of
reform.

"We want something in place so this doesn't happen to somebody else's
wife or daughter or sister or mother," he said.