VICTORIA — It was a sombre group of B.C. Liberals filing into the legislature Thursday in the wake of the latest, damaging revelations out of the premier’s office.

Taxpayer-funded resources commandeered for political party purposes. Ethnic representatives recruited for public events, only to have their names compiled on lists for Liberal electoral purposes.

Historical wrongs acknowledged for no good reason other than the prospect of a “quick win” with the appropriate community. All of it spelled out in a multicultural strategy document, leaked to the New Democrats.

And at the centre of it all, Premier Christy Clark’s deputy chief of staff and longtime aide Kim Haakstad, who in early 2012 distributed the cynical, meticulous, detailed 17-page strategy through her own personal email account to preferred staffers.

With all that hanging over their heads, the Liberals put aside their brassy behaviour for the duration of the afternoon question period. No boasting about the years-from-paying-off liquefied natural gas strategy. No taunts to the New Democrats about “what would you do?” Even the resident insult comic, Kevin Krueger, kept his trap shut.

Two of the more interesting studies were Kevin Falcon and George Abbott, respectively the second- and third-place finishers to Clark in the 2011 party leadership race.

Both, having announced their retirements, are now relegated to the government backbench, where they sit side by side. On Thursday they exchanged a few whispered words here and there as the Opposition paraded the shabby details of the multicultural strategy through question period for a second day.

No comment from either of them on the record. But I figure they are appalled at the amateurish antics of the inner circle surrounding the woman who defeated them for the leadership and who failed to deliver on a promised fresh start for a troubled government.

Another interesting study was Mike de Jong, the fourth-place finisher in that leadership race and now minister of finance.

Would he care to comment on the concern that a document distributed out of the office of the premier had proposed that public resources be diverted to political party purposes? He would. “There is a line and the document in a number of instances crosses that line,” de Jong told reporters.

Then there was Rich Coleman, deputy premier. With Clark in Vancouver for a session with the editorial board of this newspaper, it fell to Coleman to deliver the government line in question period.

He started off by reading a statement of regret attributed to the premier. “I want to sincerely apologize to British Columbians. The document did not recognize that there are lines that cannot be crossed in conducting this outreach and it is unacceptable. The language in the draft document and some of the recommendations are absolutely inappropriate.”

The statement, hastily crafted to all appearances, was an improvement on what Clark told the paper’s editorial board, where she offered no apologies for crossing the line and downplayed the significance of the document.

“None of the money that was talked about in that report was ever spent for the purposes that the people writing the document thought it might be, and ... there was no sharing of resources between government and the party.”