28 Facts About Inky Mark

Inky Mark ran in the 2015 federal election, noting that he is a Green Party of Canada member but that he would still run as an independent.

Inky Mark was born in Taishan, China, and moved to Manitoba as a child.

Inky Mark accompanied his mother when she fled China in 1953, and subsequently settled with his family in the Manitoba community of Gilbert Plains.

Inky Mark has a Bachelor of Arts from Brandon University and a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Manitoba.

Inky Mark has a certificate in broadcasting and started a master's degree in education program, although he did not graduate.

Inky Mark was elected to the Dauphin town council in 1991, and became the town's mayor in 1994.

From 1997 to 2000, Inky Mark was one of only three Chinese-Canadian MPs in the House of Commons.

The Reform Party dissolved itself in 2000 in favour of the Canadian Alliance, and Inky Mark ran as a candidate of the new party in the federal election which followed.

On September 12,2001, Inky Mark left the Canadian Alliance caucus to sit as a member of the Democratic Representative Caucus, in alliance with the Progressive Conservative Party.

Every other member of the DRC requested to be re-admitted to the Alliance; Inky Mark did not join them, but instead decided to sit as an "Independent Conservative", with the intention of rejoining the Progressive Conservatives at their annual party convention later in the year; he had been a Progressive Conservative before the early 1990s.

Inky Mark formally joined the Progressive Conservatives on August 27,2002.

Inky Mark supported the merger, and formally joined the new party's caucus on February 2,2004.

Inky Mark was easily re-elected in the Canadian federal election of 2004.

In 2005, Inky Mark alleged that Treasury Board President and Liberal MP Reg Alcock offered him an ambassadorship if he were to resign his seat.

Inky Mark is and has been an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister's Office, and several sitting and former Conservative MPs.

Inky Mark frequently complained that Harper was controlling, and he responded by refusing to attend Conservative events.

Inky Mark has called Harper a "fascist" and complained that he runs a "top-down dictatorship".

Inky Mark says that the Central Intelligence Agency is controlled by the United States' Republican Party, and that the Republican Party installed Stephen Harper as the Canadian Prime Minister in order to sell out Canada to the United States.

Inky Mark complained that the nomination race for the Conservative candidate following the resignation of Labrador MP Peter Penashue was rigged because Harper "wants a candidate he can control".

Inky Mark complained that the nomination race to replace Merv Tweed was rigged, and that the eventual successor, Larry Maguire, was just a "rubber stamp" for Harper.

Inky Mark was featured prominently in the book Tragedy in the Commons, where almost every chapter quoted Inky Mark's complaints about the way Harper's government was run.

Inky Mark complained that the Conservatives' Constituent Information Management System was a secretive database used to track and control Canadians' information and voting preferences, and said that Harper could simply "switch off" this system to punish an MP.

In 2001, as the Alliance's parliamentary critic for Immigration, Inky Mark was responsible for expressing his party's position on the Liberal government's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which he did during the immigration controversy involving the Sklarzyk family who, as a result of an administrative error, was deported from Canada to Poland in May 2001.

Inky Mark contributed to the parliamentary committee's work in drafting the final version of the bill, and was generally regarded by MPs from all parties as having made several constructive criticisms to the legislation.

Day's comments diverged from Inky Mark's stated position on several particulars, and his speech was regarded as very surprising by many other MPs in the House of Commons.

Inky Mark announced in June 2009 that he would be resigning before the next federal election.

Inky Mark announced that he is a member of the Green Party of Canada, but would still seek election in 2015 as an independent candidate.

Inky Mark finished a distant fourth behind Sopuck, garnering only eight percent of the vote.