WATCH: Independent MLA questions NDP over ex-chief’s violent comments toward residential school critic

VANCOUVER — An independent MLA asked the British Columbia Premier, David Eby, if he agreed with comments by a former indigenous chief who said she “wished” an academic critic of residential school narratives could be beaten and raped..Tara Armstrong, the independent member for Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream, raised the issue in the legislature while questioning the NDP government about remarks made by Charlene Belleau, a former chief of the Esk’etemc First Nation (also known as Alkali Lake, near Williams Lake).Video footage from a University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine event livestreamed Tuesday shows Belleau, a residential-school survivor, recounting a confrontation with Frances Widdowson, a former Mount Royal University professor known for questioning aspects of the residential school legacy, including unverified claims of unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.“I wish that our people could grab you, drag you over to the Kamloops Residential School, put you into a basement, speak our language to you, nothing but Secwépemc, beat you, rape you, hurt you, and maybe you’d understand what we — our people went through,” Belleau said in the UBC clip.Armstrong asked whether Premier David Eby agreed that reconciliation should include Canadians being beaten or raped, or whether he would denounce the chief’s “vile, inexcusable threats.”The NDP government’s response in the legislature did not include a direct condemnation of the specific remarks.Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation Spencer Chandra Herbert told the legislature he had not previously seen Belleau’s comments before they were raised in the House. He referred to the emotional nature of the residential school issue, the removal of children from their homes, the loss of language and culture, and the deaths of many children who “never came home.” He also referenced past calls by some to exhume, or "dig up," remains at former school sites, comparing it to practices not followed after other historical atrocities..Attorney General and Deputy Premier Niki Sharma responded by stating that Armstrong’s line of questioning was “offensive” and that the independent MLA was denying the harms inflicted by residential schools on people across the country. She did not directly address or condemn Belleau’s comments.Belleau has been nominated by Eby for the King Charles III Coronation Medal.Widdowson, meanwhile, has faced widespread criticism for her views on residential schools and the 2021 announcement by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc of potential unmarked graves detected by ground-penetrating radar at the Kamloops site.No remains have yet been exhumed or forensically confirmed there, despite the Kamloops Indian Band receiving more than $16 million from the federal government for the specific purpose of exhumations.

WATCH: Independent MLA questions NDP over ex-chief’s violent comments toward residential school critic

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