BC

Former New Democrat premier Ujjal Dosanjh says the ethnic vote-winning debate that has hammered British Columbia's Liberals and forced them to issue numerous apologies is nauseating, sanctimonious and holier-than-thou.

Dosanjh said Friday all political parties engage in what he calls pandering to ethnic voters and that pandering gets especially rich as election dates approach.

Others agree, suggesting the leaked Liberal strategy from last year, which surfaced last week, less than three months before the May 14 B.C. election, mirrors the goals of other political parties. It's similar to federal Conservative Party strategies and compliments the prowess of the B.C. New Democrats in maintaining ethnic voter support, observers say.

Dosanjh, a former federal Liberal cabinet minister, said the only real problem with the leaked B.C. Liberal ethnic strategy is its calls to co-ordinate operations between taxpayer-funded government workers and B.C. Liberal Party operatives when it comes to courting ethnic voters.

Otherwise, Dosanjh said the scandal that has forced Clark's former deputy chief of staff and her multiculturalism minister to resign and prompted an internal review is much ado about nothing.

"Other than the fact they mixed political work with government money, this is absolutely what all political parties do," he said.

"They pander to groups: business groups, union groups, ethnic groups. There is no one in this business that is pure, so I find this holier-than-thou nonsense nauseating."