(Prime Time Crime exclusive Jan. 10, 2005)
Liberal candidate's integrity called into question
over missing money
By Leo Knight
With the federal election in high gear and the main candidates throwing around enough red herrings to overdose the trained seals on the Liberal back benches, it looks like the race is still too close to call.
Paul Martin and his team have accused Stephen Harper and the Conservatives of everything but the Lindbergh kidnapping. Harper, for the most part, has stayed on message.
But if this election is about anything, it is about integrity. And trust.
The sponsorship scandal has done what Shawinigate, the HRDC Billion Dollar Boondoggle (which was actually $3 billion) and the failed long gun registry never could; it has convinced a majority of Canadians that the Liberals play fast and loose with the concept of integrity.
But it is all about trust and integrity. I may not like the high taxes, big spending, bigger government policies of the NDP, but I still expect Jack Layton to be honest. And so far, at least it seems as though he has been in outlining his plans, ill conceived though they may be. I cannot say the same about Paul Martin.
Suddenly he is the champion of health care. Considering he was the architect of its steady demise that seems a bit hard to swallow. But then, most of his foundering campaign of regurgitated promises is pretty hard to swallow, no pun intended.
And then there's the issue of crime which has climbed to the top of the issues list after the murder of a 15 year old schoolgirl in a Toronto mall on Boxing Day. Martin sleazed his way into a photo op and announcing he will ban handguns. Apparently he doesn't realize that handguns are already banned and have been since 1934. Not that the niceties of the law matter much to a gang-banger with a nine stuck in the belt of his baggy pants.
But no matter what ridiculous things come out of the Prime Minister's mouth, no matter the laughable accusations he levels at Harper, no matter how desperate he looks trying to cling to power, the real issue in this election is trust and integrity.
And, if this can be said of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, it seems it also bleeds down to the local level. In West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast, Liberal candidate Blair Wilson, a chartered accountant by profession, is vying for the seat held since 1993 by Conservative John Reynolds.
He claims to be a successful businessman who doesn't need the money or a job. He's a happily married family man. Just the sort of guy you'd want as your Member of Parliament. Right?
Well not so according to several people who had invested heavily in a tech-sector company with a great innovation.
The company was developing specialized software that combined a leading edge compression component with a highly sophisticated algorithm. Without making your eyes glaze over with further description of the product, this was leading edge technology for its time in the late 90's.
It looked like the company would do very well and even had expressions of interest from big boys such as Microsoft.
The Chief Financial Officer and President of the company, Multimedia Accelerator Corporation, was Blair Wilson. As such, he was also a signing officer, one of at least three. All cheques required two signatures and significant expenditures had to be approved by the finance Committee. These were the rules set in place as the company got seed capital and prepared itself to go public and raise investment capital on the stock exchange.
A fiscal year-end audit caught a glaring irregularity. It seems a substantial amount of money had been diverted by way of a company cheque. Around that time Wilson was struggling with his restaurant business on Robson Street.
The audit also determined the money had been returned some 65 or 66 days later. But the whiff of scandal gave some shareholders cold feet. The Board of Directors demanded the resignation of Wilson and the return of all shares including founding shares. Wilson acquiesced with the proviso that the matter did not proceed further civilly or criminally.
The Board agreed
According to several people I spoke to, neither of the other authorized signatories, signed the cheque.
"I was livid at the time," said one executive of the company in an interview. "I saw him in a bar about six months later. He was sitting with a couple of people. I walked up to him and asked if he was still telling lies."
The great idea the company had went for naught. A lot of people lost their money. It could have been the tech sector meltdown of the times or it could have been the whiff of scandal.
When informed last year that Wilson was running for politics, a former officer of the company asked, "Isn't it interesting?"
"He doesn't have the integrity to perform at a level we expect our politicians to perform at," he said "He'll make a great Martin Liberal."
Oddly enough, Wilson's bio on his website doesn't mention his time as CFO and President of Multimedia Accelerator Corporation. He must have forgotten.
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