B.C. Conservative MLA refutes charge of residential school denialism
First Nations leader calls Dallas Brodie's statements 'repugnant and ugly'
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 ([he 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."
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs says Brodie's comments cause pain to residential school survivors and their families.
"I find such remarks to be absolutely disgusting, repugnant and ugly," he said.
B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma says during her law career, she worked with residential school survivors, who have fought hard for decades to have their truth recognized.
"It's been a long and painful journey to those people," Sharma said. "I'm disappointed that her first question to me as critic would be based on a form of denialism of residential schools.
Sean Carleton, an Indigenous Studies professor at the University of Manitoba, said residential school denialism is not just denying that residential schools existed, but involves a "strategy to try and shake public confidence in established truth by minimizing, downplaying and twisting facts… to shake public confidence in the truth."
Carleton is concerned that some politicians are using such statements as a wedge issue.
"If they can delegitimize Kamloops, then they can delegitimize the entire residential school narrative," he said.
In 2021, the Tk'emlúps First Nation said that ground penetrating radar provided "confirmation of the remains of 215 children" at the school site, but last year changed the wording to 215 anomalies. News stories have referred to them as "potential burial sites or potential unmarked graves."
Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir, chief of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, was not available for comment Monday.
The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has documented that at least 4,118 children died at residential schools.
More than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend them in Canada, the last of which closed in 1996.
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