Doctor quits UCP citing views of Kenney’s speech writer
The doctor at the centre of a dispute with the province’s health minister earlier this year has quit the United Conservative Party, citing racist views of the premier’s speech writer.
Calgary physician Dr. Mukarram Zaidi submitted his resignation from a board position in the constituency office of Calgary West over the weekend after learning about a column written in 2013 by Premier Jason Kenney’s speech writer, Paul Bunner, which declared Canada’s residential schools a “bogus genocide story.”
Zaidi was disappointed when the premier didn’t immediately fire Bunner for his denial of the effects of residential schools and disrespect of Indigenous, First Nations, Inuit and Métis people displayed in the column.
“I cannot believe that somebody who wrote so disrespectfully in denying the genocide of First Nations, and the horrors that residential schools brought upon them, could be someone who is working for a public office and is paid with taxpayers’ money,” said Zaidi.
“There is no room for this in government ... This is a prime example of systemic racism and white privilege; exemplifying and encouraging colonial mentality and disrespecting Aboriginal, First Nations, Inuit and Métis people.”
Zaidi had a previous dispute with Health Minister Tyler Shandro after Shandro and his wife went to Zaidi’s home in March to confront him about a Facebook post criticizing the minister. Zaidi alleged that
Shandro’s involvement in the company Vital Partners Inc. — of which he and his wife are part-owners — constituted a conflict of interest.
Shandro said he regretted his actions and Kenney rejected calls to remove Shandro from his position.
Zaidi stayed with the party after the encounter, but learning of Bunner’s writing led him to resign.
Bunner’s column — written for the publication C2C Journal — stated the media, the academy and politicians need to question the “residential schools orthodoxy” and recognize that those who created and operated the schools were “motivated by an altruistic desire to help a colonization-shattered people adapt to their new reality.”
In it, he argued that Stephen Harper’s historic 2008 apology “deepened the conviction that Church and State conspired not only to ‘kill the Indian in the child,’ but also to physically exterminate the whole race. The Aboriginal grievance and entitlement narrative continues to gather momentum.”
Between 1831 and 1996, 139 residential schools were operated across Canada and some 150,000 Indigenous children attended. The children were taken from their families and stripped of their culture, language and identity while also being physically and emotionally abused. Some 6,000 died.
Kenney, when asked about the controversy on Thursday, did not comment on whether he would fire Bunner. He said he has not read the article and was unaware of Bunner’s statements when he was hired.
“I cannot be part of a party that disrespects Indigenous people in such a way,” Zaidi said.
When asked about Zaidi’s resignation, UCP president Ryan Becker said in a statement: “It is well known that Dr. Zaidi has a long-running, well-established grievance with the UCP government, so this latest move is not at all surprising.”
The UCP did not provide Postmedia with an interview and did not respond to requests for further information.