VICTORIA — The week began with one of those question periods where the Hansard transcript almost needed footnotes, there being so much backstory behind the charges flying back and forth across the floor of the house.

Opposition leader John Horgan led off by asking about Premier Christy Clark’s $150,000-a-year man on the liquefied natural gas beat, Gordon Wilson.

Say, isn’t that the same Gordon Wilson who “came home to the B.C. Liberal party” and endorsed Clark on the eve of the last election?

Who before that served as a cabinet minister in the New Democratic Party government that Horgan served as a staffer in the late 1990s?

And before that quit the B.C. Liberal party (where Clark herself was serving as a staffer) on losing the leadership to Gordon Campbell?

Suffice to say the Wilson name packs a lot of baggage on both sides of the house.

Horgan wanted to know why the Liberals had recently extended Wilson’s appointment as Buy B.C. LNG advocate for another two years “when there’s no LNG to advance?”

The question prompted some awkward jockeying on the government side.

The advocacy position is in the bailiwick of Jobs Minister Shirley Bond and she dutifully got to her feet, prepared to defend her appointee in her usual down-to-earth fashion. Instead she was upstaged by the blustery Minister for Natural Gas Development Rich Coleman.

“Now, I know that the leader opposite is ‘no’ to natural gas development, ‘no’ to LNG, has been all along, will continue to be that way,” Coleman fulminated. And so on through the thousands of jobs that are already dependent on the natural gas sector, the dozen and a half proposals in the works, and the $20 billion that has supposedly been spent by would-be developers without making a final investment decision on even one LNG terminal.

“It’s always nice to have a contribution from the minister of gas,” returned Horgan,” but I think the only (person) to have a future so far, with respect to LNG, is Gordon Wilson.”

The advocate was supposed to oversee development of an online tool where B.C. firms could sign up for LNG opportunities. The site had been developed by an outside contractor at a cost approaching $1 million. But the opportunities were nowhere to be found, near as the New Democrats could determine.

“I click on ‘opportunity,’” reported Horgan. “Do I find a welding job? Nope. Do I find anything for engineering firms? Nope. How about environmental consultancies? Nope. Nothing, zero, zilch, nada — not a single opportunity on the LNG tool.”

Given those results, Horgan couldn’t resist drawing attention to one of the aforementioned bits of political baggage: “Why is there such a commitment to Gordon Wilson? He said before the last election that everyone should vote for the premier. Maybe that’s why you’re so connected to him.”

Plus Wilson’s wife, Judi Tyabji, herself a former Liberal MLA, later NDP supporter, and now returnee to the Liberal fold, was writing a book about Clark. “Maybe that’s why you’re so committed to him.”

The Opposition trip down memory lane prompted a similar turn for Coleman. “What drives you crazy is that it’s a former NDP cabinet minister that’s actually found a life and come over to the side of free enterprise.”