The Written Word
for January 5, 2000

The apparent resurrection of Gordon Wilson defies explanation.

He became Liberal Leader back in 1990 when no one else in the entire world wanted the job. In the 1991 election, largely on his performance in the televised leaders debate he caught a wave and rocketed his party into second place and the Official Opposition. What one tends to forget is that the TV stations refused Wilson a place on the dais in the first place and he had to make an enormous nuisance of himself in order to get the hearing that did him so much good.

Once installed as Leader of the Opposition Mr Wilson proceeded to so piss off his party that long before he and his House Leader became known as a "thing", he had a divided caucus. Unlike Gordon Campbell who later was able to keep his party together on issues like the "Calgary Declaration" and the Nisga’a treaty, Mr Wilson was unable to hold his caucus together over the Charlottetown Accord. Indeed one of his caucus, David Mitchell, actually appeared on a platform supporting the deal with then Premier Harcourt.

After his denial of his love affair with his now wife Judi Tyanji got him into even deeper hot water with his caucus, he resigned as leader in a test of strength. He found that he had no strength. He lost to Gordon Campbell and stomped away from the party and formed his own called the Progressive Democratic Alliance.

To the surprise of many, he held his seat in the 1996 election although wife Judi lost hers.

Things looked pretty bleak for Gordon thereafter. Even though the NDP government got into deeper and deeper doo-doo, the public gave their support to his old team, the Liberals under Gordon Campbell.

Then in the Fall of 1998 a brief window of opportunity occurred when then Premier Glen Clark offered him the Constitutional portfolio which Wilson turned down on the grounds that he would have to abandon his party, for whatever value that was. Evidently it had little value when Wilson had a closer look because last January 27^th Wilson succumbed to Mr Clark’s blandishments and crossed the floor to become a NDP cabinet Minister.

Then came the Glen Clark mess and his resignation. While he was coy about admitting it, Wilson was clearly a contender. Now, as Howie Meeker would say – stop it right there. At this point Gordon Wilson had shown a remarkable ability for political survival. But then came two serious wounds, one self inflicted, the other bad luck.

Mr Wilson, it was discovered by his old party, had once claimed to have seen Martin Luther King’s famous "I have a dream" speech … when it was seen that he was but a 14 year old teenager at the time Mr Wilson was greatly embarrassed – especially since, instead of admitting his error, he chose to battle back on my show and thus made himself look even more the fool. Then Judi’s husband wanted to deny access to the children over Christmas based upon the alleged sexual abuse of them by Mr Wilson’s 23-year-old son.

How much lower can your fortunes go. Here you are, seeking the leadership of a party you’ve been a member of for less than a year and you’ve been hit with all that stuff.

Well, Gordon Wilson hung in there and now, thanks to the antipathy of many NDP to Ujjal Dosanjh and, more importantly after the support given him by former Premier Dave Barrett, Wilson is very much in the hunt.

Like him or not, you have to admit that Gordon Wilson is a man of some courage and no little stick-to-itiveness. He may yet, albeit briefly, be our next premier.