WARNING: This story contains details of experiences at residential schools.
The B.C. Conservative Party has removed MLA Dallas Brodie from its caucus.
Leader John Rustad said it was a result of Brodie’s recent appearance on a podcast where, he said, she “uses a mocking, child-like voice to belittle testimony from former residential school students, saying things like ‘my grandmother’s truth’ and ‘my truth, your truth’ in a child-like ‘whining’ voice.”
”The privilege, and platform, of being a Conservative MLA comes with an expectation and responsibility to do the right thing — mocking former residential school students giving testimony, including testimony about child sex abuse by pedophiles, is beyond the pale,” Rustad said in a written statement.
He also said Brodie had, on Thursday, challenged the Conservative Party of B.C. caucus to fire her — including by asking Conservative MLAs to have a vote on removing her — and made the decision to walk out of the Conservative Party of B.C. caucus room.”
Dallas Brodie was removed from the B.C. Conservative caucus after she appeared in a video podcast and made comments party Leader John Rustad characterized as “mocking” the testimony of residential school survivors who suffered abuse.
Rustad said the decision to remove Brodie was not based on earlier statements surrounding the number of bodies found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School site but instead about “an elected MLA using her position of authority to mock testimony of survivors of abuse, including child sex abuse.”
“As a result of her decision to publicly mock and belittle testimony from former residential school students, including by mimicking individuals recounting stories of abuses — including child sex abuse, MLA Brodie is not welcome to return to our Conservative Party of B.C. Caucus.”
Weeks of tension
Brodie’s public statement on residential schools have been a source of tension in the party for several weeks.
In February, she made a post on X focused on the Kamloops Indian Residential School site.
“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,” she said in the post.
In 2021, the federally appointed Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation said it had documented the deaths of more than 4,100 children while attending these schools, most due to malnourishment or disease. That work had come as part of the Truth and Reconciliation report into residential schools, which entailed collecting six years of testimony received from more than 6,000 attendees across the country.
It also heard testimony that many of the children who attended the schools were physically, sexually or psychologically abused, ultimately characterizing the system as a “cultural genocide.”
In May 2021, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation said ground penetrating radar provided “confirmation of the remains of 215 children” at the school site but revised its language in July 2021 to describe the finding as “potential burial sites.” The First Nation changed the wording last year to “anomalies.”
Brodie said at the time that she wasn’t denying the impact of residential schools but wanted to be precise about the findings at the Kamloops site.
“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 in February. “I’m a lawyer. I believe in evidence, truth and pursuit of truth, and I think lawyers should be allowed to ask questions.”
She received pushback for her stance from a fellow party member and the party’s House leader, A’aliya Warbus, a member of the Sto:lo Nation.
“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,” Warbus posted.
Conservative Leader John Rustad said at the time that he had asked Brodie to take the post down, but she refused.
He also said on more than one occasion that there was room in the party for disagreement.
However, things came to a head after Brodie’s appearance on a YouTube video discussion with Frances Widdowson, a former Mount Royal University professor who came under fire for saying that there were educational benefits to Canada’s residential school system.
Speaking in the video, Brodie told Widdowson that “the most vociferous hatred” she’s received in response to her social media post has been from within her own party.
“There’s a person in our party who is Indigenous, and she was super angry and went to town and joined the NDP to call me out. We’ve actually brought in some people who — I’m just going to say this — belong in the NDP.”
She also made the statements referenced by Rustad in his reasoning for removing her from the party.
“I do know, if we don’t have truth — not his truth, her truth, oh, my grandmother’s truth,” she said before raising the pitch of her voice, to say “My truth, and your truth, oh my truth.”
Brodie claimed in the video that she had the support of about 20 MLAs who were “100 per cent behind” her.
When asked if he was concerned that other Conservative MLAs might leave the party to align with Brodie, Rustad acknowledged it was a possibility.
“Anything is possible, including, who knows, maybe other people will come in and join the Conservative Party,” he told CBC News.
Rustad, himself, was removed from the B.C. Liberal caucus in 2022 after he shared a social media post casting doubt on climate change science. He later sat as an Independent before taking over the leadership of the B.C. Conservative Party in 2023.
‘I spoke the truth because it matters’: Brodie
Brodie did not respond to calls from CBC News on Friday, but in a series of posts on X, the rookie MLA for Vancouver-Quilchena said she will “never back down.”
She defended her past remarks, repeating her assertion that “the number of bodies discovered at Kamloops is zero” and calling reconciliation a “multi-billion-dollar industry” driven by “powerful vested interests.”
I spoke the truth because it matters. I will never back down from it.<br><br>It is an indisputable fact that the number of bodies discovered at Kamloops is zero.<br><br>The truth is a threat to powerful vested interests in the multi-billion-dollar reconciliation industry. 1/
—@Dallas_Brodie
“Politicians like David Eby and John Rustad are willing to sell off British Columbia’s wealth and power, transferring it from the public to an elite racial minority—enriching opportunistic lawyers, consultants, and chiefs along the way,” she posted.
“We will stop them. We will fight for a British Columbia that serves us all. And we will do it by speaking one true word at a time.”
‘Words matter, our truth matters’: Métis president
First Nations leaders say Brodie’s statements amount to residential school denialism.
Walter Mineault, the Métis Nation of B.C. president, had called for Rustad to kick Brodie out of caucus.
“He finally made the right decision,” Mineult said.
He said it’s important to recognize that the residential school experiences being discussed were “not objective truths” for Métis people but their lived experiences.
Mineault’s grandparents attended residential schools, and his parents attended day school.
“Words matter, our truth matters, and we will always stand up against people who choose to use their position of authority to cause undue harm,” he wrote in a Facebook post.
Wade Grant, who lives in Dallas Brodie’s riding and works for the Musqueam First Nation, said he was angered by her comments.
“We know children died there, we know children were abused there, why do we have to go and dig graves to prove it?” he told CBC News.
A national 24-hour Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available at 1-866-925-4419 for emotional and crisis referral services for survivors and those affected.
Mental health counselling and crisis support are also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat.
