B.C. Conservative MLA refutes charge of residential school denialism
CBC
A B.C. Conservative MLA has refused her leader's request to take down a social media post that critics say amounts to residential school denialism — a charge Official Opposition attorney general critic Dallas Brodie refutes.
Brodie is facing backlash for a post on X.
"The number of confirmed child burials at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site is zero. Zero. No one should be afraid of the truth. Not lawyers, their governing bodies or anyone else."
Brodie, a lawyer, was coming to the defence of another lawyer, James Heller.
Last year, Heller pushed the Law Society of B.C. to change its training material to say there were "potentially" burial sites at the former residential school in Kamloops — instead of more definitive language.
Heller is suing the society for what he calls "false and defamatory" allegations of racism.
Brodie says she's not denying what happened at residential schools.
"The stand I'm taking is rooted in the need for truth. And I don't think standing for truth takes away anything from the severity of what happened at the residential schools," she told reporters in the legislature Monday. "I'm a lawyer. I believe in evidence, truth and pursuit of truth, and I think lawyers should be allowed to ask questions."
However, Brodie's Conservative colleague, A'aliyah Warbus, a member of the Sto:lo Nation and the party's House leader, said on social media:
"Inform yourself, get the latest facts, research, AND talk to survivors. Questioning the narratives of people who lived and survived these atrocities, is nothing but harmful and taking us backward in reconciliation."
Conservative Leader John Rustad said he asked Brodie to take down the post. She's refused.
"When the tweet was first put up, I was concerned it may be misinterpreted as opposed to being about the fact that there haven't been any graves ... or any bodies at that particular site exhumed or found, versus the whole issue of the residential schools," Rustad said. "I asked her to take [the post] down because of that concern."
Rustad says there is no denying the horrors of residential schools.
"[Children] went to school. They were taken from their families, and more than 4,000 children did not return home. Those children died in residential schools."
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