Paddy Roberts

Roberts was born in Barrhead, Alberta where he graduated from high school. He has lived at various places during his adult life, primarily in British Columbia, but also in California, Ireland, England, and Holland. He holds dual Irish and Canadian citizenship.

Roberts is a highly qualified professional aviator, holding the Airline Transport Pilot License for airplanes, and the Commercial Helicopter Pilot license. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from Simon Fraser University and a Master's degree in Business Administration from Trinity College, Dublin.

In 2001, Roberts ran for the BC Marijuana Party in Shuswap riding and served as the party's justice critic. Despite the fact that he was then under indictment in Canada and the United States for some alleged peripheral involvement in a Canadian-based marijuana smuggling ring, he received almost 900 votes.

In June of 2001, Roberts led the breakup of the established order in the BCMP, being then highly critical of the course party financier Marc Emery was setting for the future. He began to propose an alternative party with a principal focus on seperation of British Columbia from Canada. In addition, using the platform of the smugging conspiracy trial he was involved in, he began a series of withering attacks on the RCMP and began to ask uncomfortable questions about the relationship between the RCMP and the top of the judicial heirarchy in the province, as well as challenging the presence of American Drug Enforcement Agents on British Columbia soil.

In September of 2002, the Canadian and American governments appear to have hatched a plan to remove Roberts from the political scene in British Columbia. When a Canadian prosecutor dealing with Roberts' case in BC learned in a conversation with Roberts from Dublin that Roberts was travelling to Amsterdam the next day, steps were taken to have the Americans lodge an extradition request for Roberts. He was taken into custody at Schiphol airport while on a return flight to Canada and held for 135 days in Haarlem prison, some 75 days past the term specified in the US-Holland extradition treaty.

The United States never went through with their request and the embarrassed Dutch, realizing they were caught in the middle in a potentially explosive political situation, released Roberts to return to Canada to visit a terminally ill brother. The Canadian court, whose processes had been seriously obstructed by Roberts' absence, then forbid him to leave the country and return to Holland to continue the extradition proceedings. The Dutch kept some $45,000 in bail lodged by a wealthy Dutch coffee shop owner, despite the fact that it would have been illegal for Roberts to return from Canada.

Subsequent to his release, BC Supreme Court Justice Allison Beames ruled that Crown prosecutor Peter Eccles undeniably had something to do with Roberts' arrest in Holland but indicated she was not then prepared to have any further discussion about the propriety of such actions. RCMP have never commented on their role in attempting to silence the man who has been their foremost critic for the past 35 years.

In November of 2004, Roberts was acquitted of all the charges that had been the subject of the extradition scam.

Roberts is a declared Irish Republican and has been investigated in Canada as a member of the IRA, which he denies. BC voters can expect that while Roberts leads the Bloc, the nation which it proposes to create will have some marked similarities with Ireland, both in its course to nationhood, and in its economic policies if that nationhood is ever realized.