riding predecessor parliament religion birth_place party profession birth_date term_start residence image article_title name
west country vancouver -- sunshine coast -- sea to sky blair wilson canadian christian vancouver , british columbia conservative lawyer 19 april 1958 2008 west vancouver , british columbia john westonbc.png john weston -lrb- politician -rrb-
 john weston
john weston -lrb- politician -rrb-

john d. weston , mp -lrb- born april 19 , 1958 -rrb- is a canadian politician , who was elected to represent the electoral district of west vancouver -- sunshine coast -- sea to sky country in the 2008 canadian federal election .
he is a member of the conservative party .
weston studied international relations at harvard university and law at osgoode hall law school and is able to speak mandarin as well as french and english .
he then worked as a lawyer in canada and in taiwan .
he is a founder of pan pacific law corporation and access law group , as well as the canadian constitution foundation .
weston ran in the 2006 canadian federal election but was defeated , by blair wilson .
weston lost by 1.5 % , or 976 votes .
during the 40th parliament , he served as a member of the aboriginal affairs , fisheries , and library of parliament standing committees , and as the government liaison to the persian and iranian community , and as the vice chair of the conservative community relations committee .
since being re-elected in the 2011 canadian federal election , weston has served on the citizenship and immigration committee and as a member of the official languages committee .
weston introduced bill c-475 , which amended the controlled drugs and substances act to make it illegal to possess , produce , sell or import chemicals with the knowledge they will be used to create street drugs , though it was later tabled .
weston created a national health and fitness day bill , saying `` on a personal level i just saw when i reached ottawa how unhealthy was the lifestyle that mps lead -- so much time on airplanes and in committees and sitting in parliament .
i just resolved that if i was going to remain productive and useful to the people who voted me in , i needed to work at staying healthy . ''
in his column in the tyee , political commentator rafe mair has been extremely critical of weston 's approach to environmental issues and his role as a member of parliament .
mair has repeatedly accused weston of blindly adhering to conservative party policy on all issues .
in an article dated january 19 , 2015 , mair alleged that in weston 's time as an mp he had `` never uttered a single word of criticism of any statement or action by the government '' .
weston and mair are former colleagues from mair 's time as a bc mla , and his role as minister responsible for constitutional reform during that period .
weston has responded to mair by claiming that he carefully considers his position on environmental issues and comes to his own decision .
in a responding letter to the editor , weston also stated that mair 's critique had ignored the role of the democratic process and denigrated mps ' role in it .
