One of New Westminster city council's election challengers is launching his campaign while on hunger strike and chained to a door.
Paul Mulangu, founder of the Centre of Integration for African Immigrants, filed his nomination papers Wednesday before starting his protest of the centre losing its government funding and having its lease terminated.
Mulangu said he is running on a message of multiculturalism and change.
"I'm not a politician. I'm an activist. New Westminster needs to change for the positive. New Westminster is the nicest place to live, and it's central in B.C., but there's nothing going on. There's really nothing," he said.
Mulangu, who was honoured by the City of New Westminster and the province with two awards for his work in multicul-turalism and race relations in 2010, said multiculturalism is typically only paid lip service from politicians when action is needed.
"There are so many slogans about multiculturalism. We don't need slogans. We need things to do," he said. "Why do they speak about multi-culture in New Westminster, with so many languages, when there's no organization for those multicultural things?"
Mulangu said he is counting on the support of New Westminster's African community as well as fellow activists who are working for "the small people."
Mulangu immigrated to Canada after fleeing civil war in his native Democratic Republic of Congo in 1990 and spending six years in a Zambian refugee camp. He started out in B.C. cleaning washrooms at Vancouver International Airport but later went on to study English, computer science and employment counselling at BCIT before founding the centre.
brichter@royalcityrecord.com
