Canada's first Green Party Member of Parliament this week said the growing threat he posed to the federal Liberal Party power structure - not his failure to disclose his own business and financial dealings, as party officials claim - were to blame for his downfall with the Liberals.With Green Party Leader Elizabeth May by his side, Blair Wilson on Saturday (Aug. 30) announced his shift from independent MP - a status that had prevailed since last fall after his ouster from the Liberals amid allegations of campaign misspending - to joining the Greens for the upcoming federal election. In a statement issued Sunday (Aug. 31), Wilson said he thinks voters in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky are ready to make history and make him Canada's first elected Green Party representative, federally or provincially."I have always shared the Green Party's values of sustainability, non-violence, participatory democracy, social justice, respect for diversity and ecological wisdom - and I am confident that most voters in my riding do so as well," Wilson said.With Prime Minister Stephen Harper expected to drop the election writ any day, having a sitting MP should ensure May can take part in televised leaders' debates."It is shocking that the Green Party was excluded from the debates in the past, but by joining the Green Party, I can help guarantee that this travesty will not be repeated in the next election," said Wilson.In late July, Elections Canada stated that while the 2006 Wilson campaign had violated the Elections Act in three instances, it was meting out no penalty against him. Wilson characterized the Elections Canada report as a vindication and vowed to continue his political comeback.But until Saturday, most had expected him to continue his bid to rejoin the Liberals. He had been planning to appear before the federal Liberal caucus in mid-August, but that meeting was postponed until mid-September.Liberal Party officials have repeatedly insisted Wilson had been barred from running for the party in the future because of his failure to disclose some information about his past to the party. After the Elections Canada probe's results were made public, a party official said a report on the specific omissions had been forwarded to Wilson and his lawyer, but the official declined to discuss the report's contents.In Sunday's statement, Wilson characterized the articles, and the Liberals' rejection of him as a candidate, as a politically motivated smear campaign. The statement said that at the time of the Liberals' decision, the federal party in B.C. "was being hamstrung by a powerful group of unelected backroom players."Said Wilson, "I got on the wrong side of that group early on because my success in the party after I was elected in 2006 was perceived as a threat to their power."Based on what's happened over the past year, it's clear that they were prepared to stoop very low to remove me from the scene, but they have failed."Calls to Liberal Party officials seeking comment were not returned.Meanwhile, the man who stepped aside as the Green Party's nominee in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky to make way for Wilson said he was happy to do so as a way to raise the Green Party's profile in the upcoming campaign.Jim Stephenson said he first learned of Wilson's ambitions during a meeting with May on Friday (Aug. 29). Stephenson, who had been the Greens' nominee in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky since May, said he was happy to step aside to make way for Wilson because, according to May, having an MP should guarantee the Green Party leader a spot in any televised leaders' debate.On Friday, the Green Party's website included a profile of Stephenson as their nominee in the riding. By Saturday, that profile and photo had been replaced by Wilson's."I had a meeting with Elizabeth May on Friday morning, at which point she told me about the discussions that had occurred with Blair Wilson," Stephenson said. "They had done quite a bit of due diligence, looking into the anonymous accusations against Mr. Wilson and the probe by Elections Canada, and they came to the conclusion that he had been victimized and that he was actually a good guy and would fit in as a Green Party MP."Stephenson said that while he doesn't agree with the fact that corporations -i.e. television networks -decide which leaders take part in the debates, the Greens had heretofore failed to meet only one of their criteria: they didn't have a Member of Parliament."Given that that's the world we work within, I felt that was the only way I could help ensure that the Green Party agenda gets heard during this election," Stephenson said.Stephenson, a resident of Lions Bay, said he was scheduled to meet with representatives of the North Vancouver Green Party riding association on Tuesday (Sept. 2) about potentially running in that riding. As of last week, the Greens had no nominee in that riding. In 2006, Stephenson finished fourth in North Vancouver, polling 7.49 per cent of the vote in a race won by Liberal Don Bell.If, as expected, Squamish Mayor Ian Sutherland is acclaimed as the Liberals' candidate (see related article), the slate of candidates from the four major parties in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country will be set, with John Weston running for the Conservatives, Dana Larsen for the New Democrats, Sutherland for the Liberals and Wilson for the Greens.
