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An Affair He Can't Forget

A P Kamath

It has been nearly a decade since the seemingly staid politics in British Columbia was shocked by the revelation of an affair between two married people -- an ambitious Left-leaning politician and an equally ambitious political greenhorn interested in a television career.

What also shocked many people was that it was an inter-racial adulterous affair and the lady love came from a conservative Indian Canadian Muslim family. Within a few months the two were married to each other.

Now that Gordon Wilson, education minister in British Columbia, has launched his bid to be leader of the New Democratic Party that could make him premier of the province, the affair is not allowed to be forgotten.

This week when Wilson announced his candidacy on broadcaster controversial Rafe Mair's open-line radio show, the host grilled him for nearly half an hour on many embarrassing episodes in his life. And he asked him the questions many people, including supporters of Ujjal Dosanjh, the front-runner, would want ask him.

The questions included about his qualifications to be premier.

During the broadcast, Wilson drew loud gasps from Mair when he referred to Judy Tyabji as "my current wife." If he used that term for his partner, Mair wondered, Wilson might be divorced.

"Let me clear the record on that one," Wilson hastened to add. "I mean my one and only and never to be another one."

Tyabji is planning to run for a city council post, if not a seat in the assembly.

She is expected to campaign vigorously for her husband's nomination at the NDP convention in Vancouver and she will try hard to take away a few hundred Indo-Canadian votes from Dosanjh.

Wilson is among four candidates in the leadership race to replace Glen Clark, who resigned as premier three months ago after allegations that he was involved in a controversial casino license application.

Apart from Dosanjh, Agriculture Minister Corky Evans and former finance minister Joy MacPhail are also running.

Dosanjh, with six cabinet ministers and several legislators backing him, is far well ahead of his competitors. But Wilson is quick enough to remind voters that the NDP convention to choose the party leader is still three months away.

Wilson said he expects several ministers and NDP backbenchers to join his campaign. The radio host asked Wilson if he had "stiffed a widow" on a $ 27,000 debt.

"I didn't stiff a widow," he said, referring to a complaint that he failed to declare a $ 27,000 debt the BC Supreme Court had ordered him to pay Sajida Shah. Wilson says her late husband -- who was known to Tyabji for many years -- forgave the debt before he died.

Given his financial problems, how is he qualified to run a debt-ridden province?

"Who better to take the province out of its financial malaise than someone who has taken himself out of the same malaise?" Wilson countered.

"I can do more with no money than anybody I know."

He readily admitted he ran into financial difficulties after going through a highly publicized and expensive divorce.

"I have had some difficult financial times. There is no shame in that," he said.

Dosanjh's supporters assert Wilson lacks integrity. Other political opponents and columnists too have complained about it.

He had written in his biography that, as a teenager, he had witnessed the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. The radio host asked Wilson whether it was true that victims of terrorist attacks had actually died in his arms. Wilson replied:

"What I saw was horrendous, but you know, my father always used to say: 'Forget about your life in Kenya. You can tell people the stories and they will never believe them.' "

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