Car Crash Highlight of Zeisman Campaign

[Editor's note: This week we are reprinting the top five wildest stories of the year, and this is our pick for number one. Elections in B.C. are never without colour, but one candidate in the last federal contest seemed a human kaleidoscope of ill-conceived misfortune. Smashing into a car while driving, landing himself and the other driver in the hospital, was "a good thing," said Derek Zeisman -- at least compared to the smuggling charges and boot from the Tory party soon to follow. Read this Jan. 12 report to learn some of the candidate's other, er, interesting ideas.]

You know you have had a bad couple of months when a car crash breaking your pelvis and femur is the best thing you have going for you.

That seems to be the story for Derek Zeisman who until today was the Conservative Party candidate in B.C. Southern Interior. After a string of bizarre events culminating in the revelation yesterday that Zeisman is facing smuggling charges next month, Stephen Harper booted him from the party and Conservative officials have already wiped his name off the Tory website.

I met Zeisman five months ago when I was an intern reporter for the Nelson Daily News and he was campaigning to replace retiring Conservative MP Jim Gouk. Zeisman certainly was a gung-ho candidate, firing off letters to the editor at the slightest provocation, and challenging Robert Zandee, one of his competitors for the Conservative nomination, to a series of unsanctioned debates.

Zeisman, a 33-year-old communications consultant from Trail, went on to win the nomination in September. The first bump in his campaign came in December when an essay Zeisman wrote in 1998 as a Queen's University student surfaced. Zeisman won $5,000 for the essay, which was published in a national essay contest, in a book called If I Were Prime Minister I Would. In the piece, Zeisman argued for the abolition of all corporate tax, a North American monetary union, the annexation of the Caicos and Turks islands, and the abolition of the Charter of Rights.

An unfortunate turn

Then came the car crash that landed Zeisman in Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital in Trail where he remains today. The Dec. 20 accident garnered national attention and won Zeisman sympathy, support and volunteer help in a campaign that seemed to be slipping away from him. Zeisman told the Trail Times that the accident really wasn't so bad.

"Rather than a bad experience, in some ways it was a very good experience," he said. "It was just such an upswelling of personal support by loved ones and people I feel close to, that it was, in a way, the best Christmas I have had."

It was that comment which prompted June Campbell, a Rossland native and friend of the single mom who was on the other end of Zeisman's "good experience" car crash, to write a letter to the Trail Times detailing how much her friend was hurting from the accident and how callous and immature Zeisman's comments were. Campbell alleges that Zeisman was in the wrong lane passing dangerously when the accident occurred. RCMP are still investigating.

Just as that story was breaking, CTV reported that the bedridden Zeisman was charged with attempting to smuggle 112 bottles of alcohol and a luxury car into Canada. That's when Harper's boot came through.

So now Ziesman lies in hospital, broken, party-less, and facing a bootlegging rap to go along with the aftermath of his accident. It's a good thing he had the best Christmas ever, because his new year certainly leaves a lot to be desired.