The B.C. NDP’s quota system for nominees has delivered the round of embarrassment that some people expected when the party first adopted it.
An ambitious young mayor felt obliged to privately fill in the blanks of the party’s personal/sexual categorizations as the only way of getting in the game. An accomplished woman in a wheelchair was edged out of the nomination and left mystified about how her opponent even got in the race.
When the mayor finally disclosed, it involved disclosing to his family as well. That’s a private moment that shouldn’t play out publicly on a political agenda. But that’s how the cards played out under the NDP’s theatre-of-the-absurd nomination policy.
The whole awkward, contradictory little drama reflects badly on the party. Invermere Mayor Gerry Taft felt the need to try to wind it down by disclosing that he claimed bisexual status from the menu of “equity-seeking” groups who get priority in certain ridings under the NDP’s diversity mandate in order to run.
In reasonably enlightened B.C. circa 2016, no one should care the slightest about any of this. But the curious logic train that the diversity policy sets out forced him to publicly answer a question that only the party asked.
The U.S. military used to have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. It didn’t work. The NDP’s “ask, but don’t tell” policy doesn’t work either.
The diversity mandate kicks into gear whenever an NDP MLA retires and the nomination becomes open, as the Columbia River-Revelstoke seat did last summer when Norm Macdonald announced he is leaving politics.
Two candidates emerged for the spot. One was a woman, Spring Hawes, a former Invermere councillor, business owner and accessibility advocate (in a wheelchair since a mountain-bike accident).
The other was Taft, three-term mayor and business owner, who summed up his personal life as living with a female partner and a child.
Taft beat Hawes by a 2-1 margin last week, which prompted Vancouver Sun reporter Rob Shaw to wonder: How does a white male qualify to run in a race that is reserved by NDP policy for either women, or someone from an equity-seeking category, such as a racial minority or lesbian, gay, bi or transgendered groups?
Taft said he qualified, but declined to be specific.
That stance turns equity into a joke. The whole point is encourage more minority representation on the NDP slate of candidates. How can someone represent a minority if they won’t state the minority to which they belong, and the party agrees to keep the secret?
The diversity policy was passed at a 2007 convention and the whole thrust of the heated debate was about getting more women candidates. The other groups were included because once you start down this road, the list of under-represented people gets longer and longer. Some delegates considered the policy anti-democratic and self-limiting, but it passed easily.
The upshot last week was that a disabled woman — exactly the person the policy was supposed to encourage into politics — got defeated by a man with a secret.
Hawes said Wednesday that Taft’s original stance didn’t respect the intent of the policy. If you’re going to use the policy, “you have to live up to the spirit of the policy. Not disclosing your status is an odd way to do it.”
She said people running under a special status should be public about their status from the outset.
This week Taft tried to clear the air. “I live with my [female] partner and my young son, but I identify as bisexual … I disclosed to the party the reason that I qualify for equity status. Due to my family situation and my belief that an MLA should represent all people, I chose to keep my equity status private.”
He said pressure from Hawes and others forced him to come out.
Maybe so, but he shouldn’t have needed a push. Voters are left out in the cold if the party is the only entity that gets to know how a candidate qualified.
Next one to watch is Skeena. Two women, a gay man and a man who cited hearing impairment to qualify for the race.
