If the last eight months were a battle for Blair Wilson, his family and supporters, imagine what the next few months are going to be like as he tries to restore the faith and trust of the voters of this riding?
Wilson, the member of Parliament (MP) for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, held a press conference in West Vancouver Sunday morning to proudly announce that Elections Canada had completed its investigation into his conduct.
The investigation took eight months and looked into alleged financial irregularities. Wilson was cleared of 21 of the 24 allegations against him. He admitted to making three errors in his campaign that included problems with not properly recording financial records for campaign brochures and some umbrellas - not the makings of a Watergate conspiracy, but still errors that should not have been made. Wilson was beaming proudly as the media grilled him as to why the Liberal Party should reinstate him, repeating that Elections Canada has cleared him more times than any one of the reporters there could count. He deflected questions of seeking re-election as an Independent candidate. He's been sitting as our Independent MP since he resigned from the Liberal national caucus last November when news of the allegations against him surfaced.
Wilson can't imagine the Liberals not wanting him back.
But that could be easier said than done. The Liberals appear to want nothing to do with Wilson. Party officials have stated the compliance agreement that Wilson has with Elections Canada is unrelated to his party stature. The party based their decision on Wilson's inability to disclose certain information in his nomination forms, effectively denying the party the chance to properly assess whether he would be the right candidate to represent the party. It appears the only way he could get back in is if party leader Stéphane Dion had a change of heart. But why should he? Yes, Wilson will not face prosecution and yes, the errors were fairly minor in nature, but the bottom line is Wilson screwed up. We're all human and we make mistakes, but when you're in the political field that Wilson is, these kinds of mistakes are magnified. If Wilson can't get back into the Liberal fold and chooses to run as an Independent, it will be up to the voters of this riding to decide whether they can trust him enough to be their representative. Wilson may have won the Elections Canada battle, but does he have enough to win the next federal election war? We wish him luck. He's going to need it.
