Wildrose’s Wilson inspired by Smith
If Jeff Wilson won in Calgary-shaw, the overwhelming belief went, he’d join a big contingent of big-city Wildrose rookies storming the legislature.
He won, but the 34-year-old salesman now faces a virtually unthinkable reality: he’s the only new Wildrose MLA in a Calgary that’s remained a calm blue Tory sea.
Why him? Wilson isn’t sure. “When I was at the doors, people were telling me they wanted change,” Wilson said. “If not change, then a need for a strong opposition.”
Born in Hinton, he moved to Calgary for school in 1996, moving to audio-visual equipment firm Avw-telas. Wildrose was a sales client, and he got to see many of Leader Danielle Smith’s speeches for work. It was her barn-burning rhetoric that pushed him to run for office.
The Tories’ fiscal “irrespon- sibility” was the issue that fired Wilson up for the campaign, he said. But while doorknocking in the deep south riding, he was stunned how many families he spoke to with special-needs children — an issue close to Wilson’s heart, as his sister is on disability assistance.
“It touched me, and really is what is motivating me to hold the government to account,” he said.
He joins former Tory minister Heather Forsyth from neighbouring Calgary-fish Creek as the only big-city wild rose caucus members. Wilson narrowly defeated Alison Redford’s hand-picked candidate, lawyer Farouk Adatia, in the seat left vacant by former minister Cindy Ady.