Gordon Wilson (born 2 January 1949) is a former provincial politician in British Columbia, Canada. He served as leader of the Liberal Party of BC from 1987–1993, leader and founder of the Progressive Democratic Alliance from 1993–1999, before joining the NDP where he served in the provincial cabinet. He also ran as a candidate in the 2000 BC New Democratic Party leadership race. During the 2013 British Columbia provincial election, Wilson endorsed Liberal Premier Christy Clark for re-election over the NDP's Adrian Dix. Background Wilson was born in Vancouver, spent his early years in Kenya and returned to British Columbia in the 1970s. He has a BSc from the State University of New York at New Paltz, and a master's degree from the University of British Columbia in resource economics. He raised two children with his wife Elizabeth in the Middlepoint area of BC's Sunshine Coast, dabbling in pig farming before teaching resource economics and economic geography at Capilano College (North Vancouver), where he also served as president of the faculty association. Political career In 1987, Wilson took over as leader of the BC Liberal Party, which had not elected a member in over a decade. In the 1991 general election, Wilson's profile skyrocketed after his highly successful performance in the campaign's televised leaders debate. During a nasty squabble between BC Socred leader and Premier Rita Johnston and BC NDP leader Mike Harcourt, Wilson famously said, "Here's a classic example of why nothing ever gets done in the province of British Columbia." It would become the campaign's most successful sound bite. As a consequence, he led the Liberal Party to win 17 seats, its highest total since 1949. He was largely helped by moderate Socreds crossing over to vote Liberal. The Liberals vaulted from no seats to the Official Opposition in the legislature, relegating the ruling Social Credit Party to a distant third with seven seats. Wilson won his own seat in Powell River-Sunshine Coast. In 1993, Wilson's leadership of the Liberals was challenged after it came to light that he was having an extramarital affair with fellow Liberal MLA Judi Tyabji, whom he had recently named as the party's House Leader. In a Liberal Party leadership review that had been called soon afterward, Wilson was defeated by Vancouver mayor Gordon Campbell. Within weeks, he and Tyabji left the Liberal caucus and formed a new party, the Progressive Democratic Alliance