Disgraced former Liberal MP Blair Wilson has not given up the fight. Embroiled in a controversy over allegations of election spending irregularities, he has been told by the Liberal Party that he will not be allowed to run in the next election for the Liberals.
The justification? Though Wilson has yet to have had any of the charges against him tested in a court, the Liberal Party has concluded that Wilson was not forthcoming on his applications to run as an MP.
Blair Wilson has promised to fight this decision, and has retained Jay Straith, the same lawyer who represented David Oliver in his fight against the NDP.
Looking over the rules, I think Blair Wilson has a fighting chance.
Read more...News is breaking on disgraced former Liberal MP Blair Wilson. The MP forced to quit the Liberal caucus over allegations that he committed egregious violations of the Elections Canada Act has been told by Stephane Dion that he will not be allowed to stand as a Liberal candidate in the next general election.
Read more...Over the last nine posts, I've presented the entire package of evidence presented to Elections Canada that purports to prove that Blair Wilson engaged in a pattern of deception in order to evade campaign spending limits. The former Liberal MP, now sitting as an independent, is under investigation by both Elections Canada and the Liberal Party.
The only conclusion that matters is the one that Elections Canada comes to, but we can look at the material and make some observations of our own.
Read more...We have all read the news reports about charges facing MP Blair Wilson, elected as a Liberal but now sitting as an independent. Blair Wilson is charged with serious breaches of the Elections Act. In order to help Canadians come to their own conclusions, I'll be posting the original complaint as it was delivered to Elections Canada, in its entirety, in this series of posts.
As far as I know, the original complaint has not be made available anywhere else.
In this post, we will look at the supporting documentation that alleges to show that Blair Wilson did not account properly for third-party advertising.
Read more...We have all read the news reports about charges facing MP Blair Wilson, elected as a Liberal but now sitting as an independent. Blair Wilson is charged with serious breaches of the Elections Act. In order to help Canadians come to their own conclusions, I'll be posting the original complaint as it was delivered to Elections Canada, in its entirety, in this series of posts.
As far as I know, the original complaint has not be made available anywhere else.
In this post, we will look at the supporting documentation that alleges to show that Blair Wilson ads in the Whistler Question but failed to report any advertising in this paper.
Read more...We have all read the news reports about charges facing MP Blair Wilson, elected as a Liberal but now sitting as an independent. Blair Wilson is charged with serious breaches of the Elections Act. In order to help Canadians come to their own conclusions, I'll be posting the original complaint as it was delivered to Elections Canada, in its entirety, in this series of posts.
As far as I know, the original complaint has not be made available anywhere else.
In this post, we will look at the supporting documentation that alleges to show that Blair Wilson ran a full pages ad in the Coast Reporter but reported it as a quarter-page ad.
Read more...We have all read the news reports about charges facing MP Blair Wilson, elected as a Liberal but now sitting as an independent. Blair Wilson is charged with serious breaches of the Elections Act. In order to help Canadians come to their own conclusions, I'll be posting the original complaint as it was delivered to Elections Canada, in its entirety, in this series of posts.
As far as I know, the original complaint has not be made available anywhere else.
In this post, we will look at the supporting documentation that alleges to show that Blair Wilson did not correctly account for a donation of custom imprinted umbrellas worth a significant amount in dollar value.
Read more...We have all read the news reports about charges facing MP Blair Wilson, elected as a Liberal but now sitting as an independent. Blair Wilson is charged with serious breaches of the Elections Act. In order to help Canadians come to their own conclusions, I'll be posting the original complaint as it was delivered to Elections Canada, in its entirety, in this series of posts.
As far as I know, the original complaint has not be made available anywhere else.
In this post, we will look at the supporting documentation that alleges to show that Blair Wilson spent a significant sum of money, not reported to Elections Canada, on a last minute mass mailing.
Read more...We have all read the news reports about charges facing MP Blair Wilson, elected as a Liberal but now sitting as an independent. Blair Wilson is charged with serious breaches of the Elections Act. In order to help Canadians come to their own conclusions, I'll be posting the original complaint as it was delivered to Elections Canada, in its entirety, in this series of posts.
As far as I know, the original complaint has not be made available anywhere else.
In this post, we will look at the supporting documentation that alleges to show that Blair Wilson did not correctly account for the printing of campaign material. But in the supporting documentation, we get a sense of the tensions within the campaign between those who would be careful to account for things correctly, and those who seem to think the Elections Canada rules are an afterthought.
We also learn of someone in the Liberal Party headquarters called "the big guy".
Read more...We have all read the news reports about charges facing MP Blair Wilson, elected as a Liberal but now sitting as an independent. Blair Wilson is charged with serious breaches of the Elections Act. In order to help Canadians come to their own conclusions, I'll be posting the original complaint as it was delivered to Elections Canada, in its entirety, in this series of posts.
As far as I know, the original complaint has not be made available anywhere else.
In this post, we will look at the supporting documentation that alleges to show that Blair Wilson did not correctly account for the deeply discounted rent for the Marine Drive election campaign office.
Read more...We have all read the news reports about charges facing MP Blair Wilson, elected as a Liberal but now sitting as an independent. Blair Wilson is charged with serious breaches of the Elections Act. In order to help Canadians come to their own conclusions, I'll be posting the original complaint as it was delivered to Elections Canada, in its entirety, in this series of posts.
As far as I know, the original complaint has not be made available anywhere else.
In this post, we will look at the supporting documentation that alleges to show that Blair Wilson did not correctly account for the Cowrie Street election campaign office.
Read more...We have all read the news reports about charges facing MP Blair Wilson, elected as a Liberal but now sitting as an independent. Blair Wilson is charged with serious breaches of the Elections Act. In order to help Canadians come to their own conclusions, I'll be posting the original complaint as it was delivered to Elections Canada, in its entirety, in this series of posts.
As far as I know, the original complaint has not be made available anywhere else.
In this post, we will look at the charges.
Read more...Blair Wilson is the Liberal MP who has resigned from the Liberal Party caucus over allegations of personal and electoral financial misdealings. However at least one element of the story has been called into question. Given that it is part of the political side of the story, it might be significant.
Read more...Blair Wilson will be forced to give up his seat. No question of that. The Liberal Party has plans for that seat. But unfortunately we need to rely on rumours to know what those plans are.
Read more...How did Blair Wilson ever pass the tests all nominees must undergo before being allowed to stand for the Liberal Party as a candidate for a riding? Some of the news being reported about Blair Wilson's resignation today makes me wonder if that part of the process is going to undergo some intense, and perhaps uncomfortable, scrutiny.
Curiously, though this incident on balance is just more bad news for Stephane Dion, in one way, it might work in his favour.
Read more...Stephane Dion has lost his national revenue critic and a member of his caucus. Blair Wilson, whose financial problems were splashed all over the news on Sunday, along with allegations of campaign irregularities, has resigned.
Does this solve a problem for Stephane Dion? Not at all, unfortunately for Stephane Dion.
Read more...The allegations of financial mismanagement and electoral malfeasance being made against Liberal MP Blair Wilson are serious and apparently supported by documentation in addition to eyewitness accounts. Already people are speaking to the issue of whether Blair Wilson is even fit for office.
Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion was badly burned by the Jamie Carroll incident. How will Dion react to the emerging Blair Wilson controversy?
Read more...Liberal MP Blair Wilson, the national revenue critic in Stephane Dion's shadow cabinet, is facing some extraordinarily serious allegations. The man whose job it is to keep an eye on how the government collects our tax money is alleged to have borrowed and misspent literally millions in the family fortune. He is also alleged to have signficantly under-reported campaign expenses, running his election campaign on cash payments with no supporting receipts. Indeed, the questions are so serious, and the supporting evidence so compelling, that the Liberals have referred the matter to the party committee that evaluates potential nominees for suitability for public office.
Read more...