Ethnic lists emails focus of ongoing NDP attacks on failed Liberal plan

VICTORIA – Opposition New Democrat Leader Adrian Dix says new documents show the Liberals’ ethnic vote plan was far more developed than the findings of the government-ordered investigation suggest.

Premier Christy Clark’s deputy minister John Dyble found the ethnic vote plan blurred the lines between government and Liberal Party work, prompting six recommendations including forcing the Liberal party to reimburse taxpayers about $70,000.

Dyble’s report says work to compile ethnic vote lists was pursued, but complete lists were never developed.

But Dix says an August 2012 email from former multiculturalism minister John Yap to former government aide Brian Bonney about ethnic vote lists indicates a highly organized plan to court voters in the run-up to last May’s British Columbia election.

Clark and the Liberals denounced the ethnic vote plan prior to the election as a draft strategy that was never implemented.

Yap resigned from cabinet, while Clark’s aide Kim Haakstad lost her job, as did government worker Mike Lee, and Bonney left for a job in the private sector.