[4] Downe-Dewdney was the previously the president and founder of Free Speech Canada, a minor Canadian advocacy organization.
Tristan ran unsuccessfully for election to the House of Commons of Canada in the 2004 federal election in Trinity--Spadina riding in Toronto as a candidate for the Canadian Action Party - hoping to help the party meet pre-2004 party-status stipulations in its legal challenge against the minimum vote requirements in bill C-24.
He received a Master of Mechanical Engineering degree from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest in Romania in 1981, and was occasionally involved with local politics in that country.
He has been involved in mechanical designing and project engineering for several industries in the Greater Toronto Area, and has been a member of the Canadian Action Party since 2000.
[2] He first campaigned for the CAP in the 2000 federal election, and received 336 votes (0.94%) for a fifth-place finish against Liberal incumbent Tom Wappel.