Last year, the Kitamaat Port Development Society was established to develop a plan for the construction of a break bulk port in the northern community - receiving $200,000 in funding from the provincial government. But is the society, which has additional private sector backing, also involved in it’s president’s campaign to be re-elected chief councillor of the local Haisla First Nation? The reason we ask: a notice on his campaign Website states it was "funded and developed solely by the friends and supporters of Steve Wilson, including the Kitamaat Port Development Society…" Speaking with Public Eye, society executive director Roger Harris said he is a Wilson supporter. "But we don’t fund that kind of stuff. And I write the cheques. And I haven’t written any."

Continued Mr. Harris, the Campbell administration’s former minister of state for forestry operations, "Probably (Mr. Wilson’s) choice of words has been rather poor in terms of explaining what he’s done. But the reality is we haven’t provided financial assistance to him and nor would we."

Indeed, in a subsequent interview, Mr. Wilson said the society, "hasn’t actually put any money into (the Website). They just used the ability to get some of the partners to contribute to it" - adding that the only real cost is registering the domain name, "which is, what, $100 a year." He couldn't say whether those partners actually paid for the domain name, adding "I had nothing to do with it. It was something Concentric Public Affairs put together." A call placed to Concentric Public Affairs Inc. last night hasn't yet been returned.