Marcel Mason
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Marcel Mason (known in the blogosphere as stageleft), born June 15, 1959, is a Canadian Blogger and political activist who runs the Stageleft:.Life on the left side political weblog.
Born in Woodstock, New Brunswick, he joined the Hudsons Bay Company in August of 1978 and moved to Eskimo Point (later renamed to the original Inuit place name of Arviat). He subsequently lived and worked in Coral Harbour, Igloolik, Hall Beach, Chesterfield Inlet, and Rankin Inlet with the Hudsons Bay Company. In 1982 Marcel left the Hudsons Bay Company and worked in the social housing field in the eastern Arctic until 1992 when he entered the field of Municipal politics. In 1994 he, and his family, relocated to Iqaluit where he graduated from the Nunavut Arctic College Management Studies Program with honours.
In 1997, while working with Nunanet Communications, Marcel set up the Eastern Arctics first political discussion forum named, "The Political Discussion Forum" as a result of dissatisfaction with how the Northwest Territories government located in the western Arctic city of Yellowknife addressed the concerns of people in the eastern regions territory. The discussion forum was very successful and quickly became the place for citizens to express and discuss their political concerns.
After leaving Nunavut for Ottawa, Canada in the spring of 2002 he unsuccessfully attempted to return to the bulletin board discussion scene with a political forum named !Gonk!, and in January of 2003 set up the first incarnation of Stageleft:.Life on the left side on the free Blogspot hosting service. In March of 2003 Stageleft (the blog) moved to a subdomain of crow.ws using the PMachine blogging software. Stageleft eventually. moved to its' current domain of stageleft.info.
Marcel Mason has been described as being politically left as a result of heavy criticism of George Bush, the American invasion of Iraq, and modern Conservative political policies in general, this is an incorrect perception, he is an anarchist.
In the 2005 Canadian Blog Awards Stageleft received the 1st place award for "Best Group Blog", the 2nd place award for "Best Progressive Blog, and the 3rd place award for "Best Canadian Blog".
Stageleft:.Life on the leftside, and Marcel Mason, have been noticed by Toronto Star blogger and columnist Antonia Zerbisias who noted in one review "You have to love stageleft.info for its outrage". Zerbisias also linked the Stageleft:.Life on the left side commentary on the Warren Kinsella "I Am Not Afraid" campaign after a foiled terrorist plot in Toronto, Ontario.
