ANOTHER week, another flailing attempt by the B.C. Liberal Party to polish its image, ending in embarrassment.
This time it's a memo leaked by the New Democrats that shows the Liberals' plan to use caucus staff and taxpayer-funded resources to help them run a campaign aimed at wooing ethnic voters.
It's hard to say where this latest mishap is most offensive.
Counting in the not insignificant amount of money recently spent on government advertising, it's the third time in six months the Liberals have been caught either with their hands in the cookie jar, using taxpayer resources to help them win seats in the May election, or about to reach for it. Then there's the fact the plan was to issue strategic public apologies for historical injustices B.C.'s ethnic minority communities have suffered in order to secure "quick wins," as they describe it in their own words.
None look good on a party's resume 10 weeks before the polls open.
Perhaps most damning in the memo was the prescient warning that, if not done carefully, it could make the party look opportunist.
On Thursday, Premier Christy Clark belatedly acknowledged that, promising a review into the plan and insisting the document's "inappropriate" advice was never acted upon.
We wonder, however, what might have happened if the report had stayed buried with party insiders who followed through on the plan. We'd like to think the transparent ploy would have been just as counterproductive as it surely is now, following this week's revelations.
