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During the 1980s, Paul Manly's father, Jim Manly, was an NDP MP for the federal riding that lies just south of Nanaimo-Ladysmith. When he left politics, the elder Manly became active in advocating for the rights of Indigenous people in Canada and in Central America. He wrote a book about martyred Kaqchikel Presbyterian minister Manuel Saquic Vásquez, one of the thousands of Guatemalans murdered by the military and by paramilitary death squads.
Jim Manly also vigorously supported the Palestinian people.
In 2012, he was part of a mission, on the sailing vessel the Estelle, to breach the Israeli embargo on the occupied Gaza Strip. The aim was to deliver much needed non-military supplies to the people of Gaza. Israeli troops boarded the ship in international waters, before it could reach its destination, and arrested 30 activists, including Jim Manly.
When that happened, Paul Manly immediately went to work to attain his father's release. The junior Manly was more than annoyed that Israeli authorities required his father to sign a document falsely confessing that he had entered Israel illegally. The Estelle was not even destined for Israel; it was headed for Gaza.
More important, Paul Manly was bitterly disappointed that neither the Conservative government of the day nor any of the major political parties, including the NDP,
showed much interest in his father's case.
Jim Manly got out of detention quickly and unharmed, but the incident created a rift between Paul Manly and the Tom Mulcair-led NDP. When the junior Manly attempted to run for the NDP nomination in Nanaimo-Ladysmith, in 2015, party headquarters blocked him. Rebuffed by his own party he switched teams and ran for the Greens, but only managed a fourth-place finish. Monday's byelection told a different tale.
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