A covert partisan plan by B.C. Liberal staffers to court the ethnic vote on the public dime is a "major embarrassment" to the government that could cost the party seats in the provincial election, said North Vancouver political pundit David Schreck this week.
Schreck, a former North Vancouver NDP MLA who blogs about provincial politics, made his comments Thursday following the release of a report into a plan hatched by members of the premier's staff and Liberal party volunteers to score "quick wins" in ethnic communities.
"It's a fairly severe scandal and it may cost the Liberals several seats," said Schreck.
The report into the draft Multicultural Strategic Outreach Plan by John Dyble, deputy minister to the premier, found that a 2012 work plan to court ethnic voters inappropriately blurred the lines between government and party work. Following one of the first meetings on the scheme, "It was unclear to several of the participants whether this was a government meeting or a partisan meeting," wrote Dyble.
The work plan was subsequently "shared back and forth between government and caucus computers."
An early spreadsheet about the plan referred to "ethnic lists" and an "ethnic database" to be created for party purposes.
The report noted that after attending government events organized for ethnic communities and providing personal information, some of those who attended were mailed partisan Liberal materials.
The report found Brian Bonney, a former communications director, was doing party work about half the time he was being paid about $124,000 by the public service. On Thursday Premier Christy Clark said the Liberal Party has written a $70,000 cheque to the government to cover that.
Bonney's actions were a serious breach of conduct standards, wrote Dyble.
The report found those involved in the plan also used personal email to avoid being discovered through Freedom of Information requests. A search of IT records showed Bonney forwarded 1,100 emails from his public service account to a personal email. John Yap, former multiculturalism minister, also discussed parts of the plan and the need for secrecy with staff through personal email. Yap has since resigned and has been replaced with West Vancouver Capilano MLA Ralph Sultan.
Last week, Sultan said the wording of the original draft memo on the outreach strategy "crossed the line" of what is appropriate.
On Friday, Jane Thornthwaite, MLA for North Vancouver-Seymour, said the blurring of party and public duties described in the report "shouldn't have happened." But she added since the report was released Clark has "held people to account. . . . I think the premier has done what she can."
Thornthwaite said none of the local MLAs was aware of the "quick wins" strategy.
She also criticized the NDP for its own ethnic outreach plan, funded by constituency funds. That arrangement was recently questioned in a draft report by Auditor General John Doyle.
"No party can be judgmental on this," she said.
But Schreck said while all parties engage in "ethnic outreach," the use of government resources and attempts to hide the scheme through use of private emails are new elements to the scandal.
"That's where they went seriously wrong," he said.
Schreck said none of the revelations in this week's report are happy news for the Liberals.
