The NDP believes that in order to treat women, gays and minorities equally, it has to first treat some of them preferentially.

In a dubious Canadian first that is being played out in the on-going B.C. election campaign, the NDP has reserved about 30 per cent of its ridings for female candidates and another 10 per cent has been designated for "youth, gay/lesbian/bi/transgendered, persons of colour, aboriginal people and persons with disabilities."

Some of the candidates have been parachuted in by the NDP executive council which has "helped" local ridings make choices from the "under-represented" groups.

Carole James and her NDP call it affirmative action that is required to repair the "institutionalized sexism" in the legislature.

But this is gender-bender politics based on a phony premise.

About 15 NDP ridings have effectively banned men from being candidates and another five have chosen their NDP candidates based on skin colour and sexual preference, among other personality traits.

This scheme has cast aspersions on female, native, minority, gay and physically-challenged NDP candidates, because you can never be certain whether they are there as a result of ability and achievement, or due solely to race, sexual orientation or sympathy.

This shortsighted desire to load up the rainbow index at all costs can also be directly attributed to a maligned selection and vetting process of NDP candidates.

Last week, Ray Lam, the NDP candidate for the new riding of Vancouver-False Creek resigned from the election race hours after inappropriate photos of him surfaced on the Facebook social networking site.

One photo showed Lam with his hand on a woman’s breast, while another showed him fooling around with two others who were grabbing his underwear.

Lam’s credentials for being selected as a NDP candidate came from his involvement in gay rights groups and the Vancouver Gay Pride Parade, among other distinctions.

Last month, Mable Elmore, NDP candidate for Vancouver-Kensington was forced to apologise or risk losing her candidacy for her 2004 comments about "Zionists" that have been labelled anti-Semitic.

In the new Boundary-Similkameen riding, TV reporter Lakhvinder Jhaj has been selected by members of the provincial NDP to represent the party.

This was one of the no-men allowed NDP ridings.

Jhaj was critical of the NDP’s policies but seems to have been set right with the candidacy.

Party insiders have raised alarm bells on the selection criteria and even Carole James has admitted that her vetting process for candidates needs vetting.

The NDP’s quota system has resulted in candidacies like Kathy Corrigan in Burnaby-Deer Lake, Janice Harris in North Vancouver-Lonsdale, Pat Zanon in Surrey-Tynehead, the gay Spencer Herbert in Vancouver’s West End, Chinese businessman Gabriel Yiu in Vancouver-Fraserview and lesbian activist Jenn McGinn in Vancouver-Fairview.

These candidates may all be deserving of carrying the NDP flag.

They, however, will also be carrying the crucifix of Carole’s cooked up criteria for candidates.

The NDP says its affirmative action plan will better reflect the "faces in our communities."

That only means they want you to focus on who delivers the message rather than the message itself, because the party is lacking innovation in the latter category.

There is no place in B.C. for the NDP’s affirmative action policy because the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race, gender and sexual orientation is to stop discriminating on the basis of race, gender and sexual orientation.