The NDP should have more ethnic candidates in Vancouver, and in other GVRD areas as well. Ideally it should. But it doesn't. It was the same thing during the federal election, as Charlie Smith pointed out in the Georgia Straight about a week or so after last June's election.

Part of the reason has to do with the NDP's penchant for endless Robert's Rules of Order contests, in which the best sub-sub-amendment mover wins!!! These contests are not hospitable territory for new immigrants for whom English is a second language. As a matter of fact, those whose English is the ordinary, colloquial English found in BC society won't feel comfortable in that environment either. In fact, the only ones who do are the activists who've become part of the Labour-socialist sub-culture and for whom the required special dialect of English is an acquired taste as well as a learned skill.

But there's a larger reason. It's the national Liberal Party's more-or-less complete monopolization of the immigrant vote, a process that began in Toronto several decades ago, and which has now spread to B.C. Call it the Judy Sgro-Elinor Caplan phenomonon if you like.