The Written Word
for October 3, 1999

I should think that the premiership ambitions of Gordon Wilson are now ended although it must be observed that he does have the ability to die and rehatch.

The man has enormous talent. Without any question he is the brightest of MLAs and is certainly always the best informed. He has a masterful grasp of issues and can speak intelligently upon almost any public issue.

His problem is honesty … plain old, down to earth honesty.

In assessing honest, one must be careful. We’re all dishonest to some degree and more often than we care to admit. Those who have claimed a meal against taxes, cheated on their spouse, pinched a bit of office supplies, told convenient fibs to cover up awkward situations – the list goes on and on. We all know this to be true. What one has to worry about is someone who doesn’t seem to be able to be honest.

The history of Mr Wilson’s dissembling is there for all to see. His lying to a press conference and two broadcasters, one being me, about his liaison with Ms Tyabji; his story about leaving the Liberal Party on "principle" to invent his own party, the only principle being that the Liberals had sacked him; his sudden "merger" of the Progressive Democratic Alliance with the NDP which, in fact, was a clear abandonment of the PDA and those who had worked for him for a hand up the greasy pole of politics to a cabinet job; his mythical witnessing of Martin Luther King’s "I have a dream" speech,; his made up life story which started as being a quiet, peaceful childhood and wound up witnessing rape, beheadings and a pregnant woman dying in his arms. Now we have the amazing story of the $23,000 debt which, according to Wilson, was forgiven by the debtor on his deathbed. This ongoing string of lies is beyond what normal people do and, though I’m no doctor, seems to qualify for what lay people see as pathological lying.

But does this matter? Don’t all politicians lie?

Unhappily all of them do just as people always do. But the question is one of degree. "Social" lying is one thing, barefaced lying in order to advance one’s position is quite another. For what one sees out of this pattern of fibbing by Gordon Wilson is an ongoing effort to enhance his political position. The only fair inference one can draw from that is that Mr Wilson will never be candid with people if it hurts his position.

Can British Columbia afford such a man as premier? I doubt it given the fact that all political leaders tend to put their best foot forward we really don’t need one who, more than that, has no clear idea of what the truth is.

You see political lying has become a science. The politician takes his problem to the spin doctor who polishes it up and sends it into the public domain. The media and most people, recognizing horse shit when they smell it, don’t believe him. There is some tooing and froing and eventually the truth, somewhere between the politician’s statement and public cynicism comes out. With a Gordon Wilson everything would start from the point that he wasn’t being square with the people. No program he initiated would ever have the remotest chance of acceptance because the man is not just an optimistic politician, he is a man who dissembles by instinct.

British Columbia is in the depths of political despair. We’re rightly the laughing stock of the country. We need a rest from scandal and deceit and not only is there no guarantee that would happen under Gordon Wilson it seems pretty clear we could expect more of the same.

Whoever is the right person to be premier at this stage, it is not, alas, Gordon "Walter Mitty" Wilson.