Gordon Wilson (born 2 January 1949) is a former provincial politician in British Columbia, Canada. He served as leader of the Liberal Party of BC from 1987–1993, leader and founder of the Progressive Democratic Alliance from 1993–1999, before joining the NDP where he served in the provincial cabinet. He also ran as a candidate in the 2000 BC New Democratic Party leadership race. During the 2013 British Columbia provincial election, Wilson endorsed Liberal Premier Christy Clark for re-election over the NDP's Adrian Dix.
Background
Wilson was born in Vancouver, spent his early years in Kenya and returned to British Columbia in the 1970s. He has a BSc from the State University of New York at New Paltz, and a master's degree from the University of British Columbia in resource economics. It would become the campaign's most successful sound bite.
As a consequence, he led the Liberal Party to win 17 seats, its highest total since 1949. He was largely helped by moderate Socreds crossing over to vote Liberal. The Liberals vaulted from no seats to the Official Opposition in the legislature, relegating the ruling Social Credit Party to a distant third with seven seats. Wilson won his own seat in Powell River-Sunshine Coast.
In 1993, Wilson's leadership of the Liberals was challenged after it came to light that he was having an extramarital affair with fellow Liberal MLA Judi Tyabji, whom he had recently named as the party's House Leader. In a Liberal Party leadership review that had been called soon afterward, Wilson was defeated by Vancouver mayor Gordon Campbell. Within weeks, he and Tyabji left the Liberal caucus and formed a new party, the Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA).
In the 1996 provincial election, Wilson retained his seat, while Tyabji, whom he later married, lost hers. In response to the public comments made following the termination Wilson launched a libel lawsuit, seeking $5 million in damages, against Premier John Horgan and Minister Bruce Ralston who implied he had not sufficiently provided report or briefing of his work, as well as federal Member of Parliament Rachel Blaney who questioned the value of the work relative to the salary in a Facebook post. Wilson later expanded the lawsuit to also name the CBC, radio station CKNW, and newspapers The Globe and Mail, The Vancouver Sun and Times Colonist who had all reported on the termination and subsequent comments. In June 2019, the case judge dismissed the portions claimed to have been lost acting as a future consultant or advocate for government or LNG-related organizations but permitted the case to be further considered to examine loss of income from the LNG – Buy BC Advocate position and costs of counselling.
Other work
He has written A Civilized Revolution (1994) about his views on politics and public policy, and wrote, directed and produced Serving Thyme, a television comedy based on the west coast. After leaving politics, Wilson settled back in Powell River, and became chairman of the board of a software company. He is chairman of Blackberry Coast Capital Inc.
- Gordon Campbell 4141
- Gordon Gibson 1600
- Gordon Wilson 531
- Linda Reid 166
- Wilf Hurd 62
- Allan Warnke 36
- Charles McKinney 4