GREEN, MARIJUANA PARTY CANDIDATES JOIN LOCAL RACE

Voters in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke will have a choice of five
candidates when they mark their ballots in the federal election June
28.

Candidates from the Green and Marijuana parties have joined the race
to run alongside Conservative Cheryl Gallant, Liberal Rob Jamieson and
New Democrat Sue McSheffrey.

Gord McLeod will be the Green Party candidate.

McLeod, from Eganville, has some political background.

He ran for the Green Party in the Ottawa riding of Centretown in 1984,
losing that race to NDP candidate Mike Cassidy.

McLeod could not be reached for comment by the NRT, but in a recent
interview with the Pembroke Daily Observer, he said he hopes people
will look at the record of the traditional parties over the past 20
years when they decide how to vote.

"I think most people's hearts are with the Green Party," he said.

"We're asking people to look at the state of things now. There's no
reason not to vote Green.

"The other parties have had 20 years since the Green Party ran (for
the first time in Canada), 20 years and things haven't got better,
they've got worse."

(For more on the Green Party, see the website at www.greenparty.ca.)

For the Marijuana Party, Stan Sambey will be making his second run in
Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke.

The colourful candidate ran in the November 2000 election, finishing
with 762 votes out of the 69,000 ballots cast in the riding.

Sambey says he will be courting the vote of the disgruntled voter as
much as those who want to legalize marijuana.

"I want to be the riding's middle finger vote this year," he said.

"Nothing would draw Ottawa's attention to the demands of this riding
more then electing me, a member of the Marijuana Party." Sambey has a
website at www.geocities.com/stansambey.

The website includes pages with titles like "The Insanity of My Mind,"
"Federal Income Tax Illegal?!", "My Secret Demographic," and "Who I am
- - the most profound thing you will ever read."

The Deep River Community Association has invited both McLeod and
Sambey to take part in this week's all-candidates meeting.

The meeting takes place tomorrow night, Thursday, June 17, beginning
at 7:30 pm in Childs Auditorium at Mackenzie High School.