-- Download Self-destructive Spin Alert: BC Liberals as PDF --

It’s kind of like watching a slow-motion train wreck, but here’s something intriguing to note in terms of spin.

The BC Liberals social media team seems to have handed out talking points critiquing the members of the party who are now expressing discomfort and dissent with the Premier’s handling of the so-called “ethnic gate” memos, which appear to show that the government used public funds to strategize on how the BC Liberal party could score “quick wins” with ethnic communities by doing, amongst others, such things as apologizing for historic wrongs like the Chinese Head Tax.

It’s being reported that a group of Indo-Canadian BC Liberal members have called on Premier Christy Clark to resign, and to withdraw the $11 million dollars of funding targeted at the Times of India’s “Bollywood” Awards show – which in and of itself fits directly in to the “quick wins” strategy.

The BC Liberal response? Attack their members who are now expressing dissent and discomfort.

Exhibit 1:

Self-destructive Spin Alert

Storified by kevin harding· Sun, Mar 03 2013 12:27:51

Samuel Oliphant has worked for BC Government Caucus Research, legislature-funded staffers who support the BC Liberal’s legislative team. Bajwa is one of the people who signed off on a press release this morning calling on Clark to resign. He apparently wanted to run for the party, earlier this year. Note the date of this “supportive” email. February 8.

Admittedly, this is well after the memo and meetings took place – the memo was from December, 2011 – but it’s before it became public and before many of us knew what the BC Liberals were doing.

So, the spin now from Samuel (and the BC Liberals) is apparently to attack people expressing discomfort with highly questionable things that the BC Liberals have done, by sharing supportive emails they wrote – before they knew what the party had done.

Watch for this to continue. It’s a pretty amazing self-destructive spin process, whereby the BC Liberals attack their own supporters by using emails that they wrote before the news broke.

The message, effectively, is “if we go down, we’re taking you with us.”

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kevin harding

Kevin is a cooperator, an always-student, and passionate about the arts. As a principal of the Incipe Cooperative, Kevin works with colleagues in a workers' co-op offering services for advocacy and nonprofit organizations. He's passionate about education policy, having been through twenty some-odd years of schooling and still thinking it changes the world. He also thinks that art changes the world, and he works with Art for Impact to celebrate art's power for social change. A Vancouver born and raised resident who is exiled from Toronto, he constantly loses umbrellas and probably rants too much.

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