Liberal MLA David Swann has been conducting a hunger strike outside Prime Minister Harper's Calgary constituency office in Calgary in order to call attention to ongoing atrocities in Darfur and urge the Canadian government to get involved.
The new United Nations-African Union mission in Darfur needs leadership, Swann has said, and he wants Canada to send troops to the strife-torn region and help stop what he calls "the first genocide of the 21st century."
"We owe a huge debt to Africa for hundreds of years of exploitation. It's time for western countries to pay it back and Canada could do so with generous contributions of equipment and training and money to the U.N. Mission in Darfur now," writes Swann on his blog.
As part of a campaign called "Christmas for Darfur: Troops on the Ground," Swann and a group of eight Darfuri refugees visited Parliament Hill recently to call on MPs of all political stripes to urge the government to contribute to the U.N. mission.
Whle the group met with a number of government members, including Jason Kenney, Deepak Obhrai, Kevin Sorensen and Patrick Brown, they were unable to meet with the Prime Minister.
The U.S. has already flown in troops for the new peacekeeping force to be deployed on January 1, pledged $40 million in equipment and offered to pay 26 per cent of the cost of the operation.
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