Dallas Brodie has been kicked out of the BC Conservative caucus over her comments on residential schools.
Leader John Rustad said the Vancouver-Quilchena MLA was "no longer welcome."
"I believe strongly in free speech," he wrote in a statement, "however, using your stature and platform as an MLA to mock testimony from victims alleging abuse, including child sex abuse, is where I draw the line."
Rustad made it clear the move "has nothing to do with whether or not there are undiscovered remains at Kamloops Indian Residential School, where it is objectively true that no new bodies have been found," explaining that, "this is about an elected MLA using her position of authority to mock testimony of survivors of abuse, including child sex abuse."
"Our Conservative Party of BC team will take over MLA Brodie’s files," he continued, "including advocating to ensure the Law Society of BC uses accurate language in training materials, and does not unduly agitate against its members."
Rustad concluded by reminding everyone that "the privilege, and platform, of being a Conservative MLA comes with an expectation and responsibility to do the right thing," and that "mocking former residential school students giving testimony, including testimony about child sex abuse by pedophiles, is beyond the pale."
"I spoke the truth because it matters," Brodie wrote in a statement to the media following her ouster. "I will never back down from it. It is an indisputable fact that the number of bodies discovered at Kamloops is zero."
She claimed that the truth is "a threat to powerful vested interests in the multi-billion dollar reconciliation industry," and suggested politicians such as Rustad and Premier David Eby "are willing to sell off British Columbia's wealth and power transferring it from the public to an elite racial minority."
"We will stop them," Brodie continued. "We will fight for British Columbia that serves us all. And we will do it by speaking one true word at a time."
In her original post on X, Brodie wrote that "the number of confirmed child burials at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site is zero, adding, "no one should be afraid of the truth. Not lawyers, their governing bodies, or anyone else."
She was referring to attorney James Heller, who has received a considerable amount of backlash over his decision to sue the Law Society of British Columbia — a group to which he belongs — for libel after it repeated the claim that there were, in fact, mass graves at the Kamloops residential school.
The post divided opinion, with some supporting her and other calling on her to remove it and apologize.
During a recent interview with former professor Frances Widdowson, Brodie said "the most vociferous hatred or anger I received has been from within my own party."
"I guess there's a person in our party who's indigenous," Brodie continued, referring to House Leader and Chilliwack-Cultus Lake MLA Á’a:líya Warbus. "She was super angry and went to town and joined the NDP to call me out."
Brodie went on to argue that it was of utmost importance to promote the truth, "not his truth, her truth, my grandmother's truth ... it's gotta be the truth."
"They need to decide whether they're going to be in favour of truth, or social pressure," she said of those in power, suggesting that those in her party who she deemed to have chosen the latter "belong in the NDP."
More to come...
