As founder and CEO of the Paralink Group of Companies, based in the Vancouver area, Parasiuk organizes private sector/public sector partnerships in the export of Canada's health care, education and governmental expertise.
In his early career as a politician, he was an elected member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, Canada, from 1977 to 1988 and a cabinet minister in the New Democratic Party government of Howard Pawley from 1981 to 1988.
Parasiuk first ran for the Manitoba legislature in the provincial election of 1973,[3] losing to Progressive Conservative candidate Donald Craik by about 2,000 votes in the suburban Winnipeg riding of Riel.
Parasiuk remained neutral in the Manitoba NDP leadership race which ultimately elected Howard Pawley as party leader.
[2] He resigned his portfolios on May 20, 1986, amid a conflict-of-interest allegation,[8] but was reinstated on August 29, 1986[2] after his name was cleared by the Honourable Samuel Freedman, the retired Chief Justice of the Manitoba Court of Appeal.
[2] Parasiuk moved from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to the Lower Mainland of British Columbia in 1989, accepting the position of founding President of Vancity Enterprises, a real estate investment and development subsidiary of Vancouver City Savings Credit Union.
Under his leadership, Vancity Enterprises went through a start-up with developments such as private residences providing assisted care at Queens Park Hospital, subsidized housing located over a Vancity Community branch and the Vancouver City Savings Credit Union Headquarters, constructed on previously unusable land due to the Skytrain rapid transit unit, which now passes through the building.
This project has not been completed due in large part to funding problems brought on by the East Asian financial crisis of the mid to late 1990s.
Parasiuk has not remained active in partisan politics, although in 2003 he publicly supported Bill Blaikie's campaign to lead the federal New Democratic Party.