Calls grow louder for B.C. mayor to resign over residential school book incident

There are growing calls for Quesnel Mayor Ron Paull to resign after revelations his wife has been handing out a book that, according to promotional material from its publisher, ques‐ tions whether residential schools were fundamental‐ ly harmful to Indigenous communities and people who attended them.

More than 200 people marched outside city hall Tuesday evening before packing into an emotionally charged council meeting in the city of roughly 23,000 people, located in B.C.'s Cari‐ boo region about 400 kilome‐ tres north of Vancouver.

"We can no longer work with this mayor and we will not work with the City of Quesnel until [the] issue has been resolved," said Lhtako Dene Chief Clifford Lebrun.

"We can't have a commu‐ nity that hands out hate liter‐ ature and expect people to listen to us and to take it seri‐ ously."

WATCH | First Nations, councillors call on Quesnel mayor to resign:

The meeting also heard from the mayor's wife, Pat Morton, and one of the au‐ thors featured in the book who had travelled to Quesnel to speak to council.

The controversy is a blow to reconciliation efforts, which have been at the fore‐ front of city business.

Council began a process of working with the Lhtako Dene in 2015, formally ac‐ knowledging them as part‐ ners on whose land the city was built. In the years since, it has taken other steps to‐ ward what it calls "true rec‐ onciliation," which include restoring ownership of a downtown park to the First Nation and being the first city to officially co-host the B.C. Winter Games with an Indige‐ nous community earlier this year.

But those efforts have been threatened after a March 19 meeting where council received a letter of concern from the Lhtako Dene about a book being dis‐ tributed in the community by Morton.

The book, titled Grave Er‐ ror: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Resi‐ dential Schools), by authors C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan, contains essays that its publisher says chal‐ lenge several assertions made about the harms of residential schools.

In publicity material for the book, publishers True North and Dorchester Books say statements that residen‐ tial schools traumatized In‐ digenous people across gen‐ erations and destroyed In‐ digenous languages and cul‐ ture are either "totally false or grossly exaggerated."

It also promises to chal‐ lenge the notion that Indige‐ nous people were forced to attend residential schools and whether the residential school system can appropri‐ ately be defined as genocide.

"Whoever wrote that book, they didn't go through residential school with us," Lhtako Dene Elder Bryant Paul told council this past Tuesday, while holding an eagle feather. "[At residential school] they beat us, sexually abused us."

WATCH | Elder Paul ad‐ dresses council:

Nazko First Nation Chief Leah Stump choked back tears as she addressed the council table.

"We deserve better than having to come here to prove we went to residential school, to prove that we were hurt and broken," she said.

In 2021, the federally-ap‐ pointed Truth and Reconcilia‐ tion Commission of Canada released a report into the schools after six years of tes‐ timony received from more than 6,000 attendees across the country.

It found more than 4,100 children died while attending these schools, most due to malnourishment or disease.

It also heard testimony that many of the children who attended the schools were physically, sexually or psychologically abused, ulti‐ mately characterizing the sys‐ tem as a "cultural genocide."

The book was unanimous‐ ly denounced by Paull and council at its March 19 meet‐ ing, when the council reaf‐ firmed their relationship with the Lhtako Dene and formally accepted the find‐ ings of the Truth and Recon‐ ciliation Commission.

The rally held at city hall on April 2 was described as one in support for truth and reconciliation. Afterward, council was addressed by First Nations leaders and el‐ ders, some of whom held back tears as they described the personal impacts of resi‐ dential schools.

"We have a whole room full of elders and survivors here," Chief Lebrun said dur‐ ing the meeting. "They could go on all night and tell you what they went through. It hurts them that much that they would relive that, just to let you know."

Lebrun said the Lhtako Dene would be stepping back from their partnerships with the city until further notice.

Morton, the mayor's wife, also stepped up to the mi‐ crophone to speak.

"I'll say I'm sorry my ac‐ tions sharing this book have upset you," she said. "I'm hurt I'm put in this position. I believe in love not hate."

WATCH | Morton's ex‐ change with city council:

She asked two of the city councillors why they hadn't come to speak to her directly if they had concerns about the book, rather than bring‐ ing it up during a council meeting.

Frances Widdowson, one of the contributors to the book, also travelled to Ques‐ nel to speak to council.

She accused the city of spreading misinformation because council had read a letter from the B.C. Assembly of First Nations into the record, which included a ref‐ erence to unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Resi‐ dential School.

In 2021, the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation an‐ nounced preliminary results of ground-penetrating radar work at that school, which they said showed approxi‐ mately 200 potential burial sites on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Res‐ idential School.

WATCH | Widdowson ad‐ dresses council:

One of the criticisms in Grave Error is that a number of early media reports refer‐ red to these sites as un‐ marked graves without in‐ cluding context that they were unconfirmed, which the authors say have helped shape a false public narrative even as work continues at Kamloops and sites across the country to confirm the preliminary findings.

"There is no evidence of unmarked graves," Widdow‐ son told council, a statement she repeated as people in the gallery started to drown her out with drumming. "Does council support misin‐ formation?"

In response, Coun. Lau‐ rey-Anne Roodenburg pointed out Widdowson had been fired from Mount Royal University in Calgary after es‐ pousing the benefits of resi‐ dential schools.

"You really have no place here," Roodenburg told Wid‐ dowson. "We really don't want to hear from you."

Roodenburg was one of three councillors, along with Scott Elliot and Tony Goulet, who formally asked Paull to resign during the meeting.

"Mr. Mayor, you have lost the trust of our First Nations, myself, and the vast majority of our community," Ellilot said. "I have no choice but to ask for your official resigna‐ tion, so we can repair the damage done by you and your wife."

Elliot and Goulet accused the mayor of handing out the book at a local government meeting, a charge that Paull denied, saying he had simply brought it up during a discus‐ sion of what books should or should not be available at a local library.

"I have not distributed the book," he said. "If you're going to accuse me of a lie, I'm going to fire right back at you because you lied. "

Near the end of the meet‐ ing, Paull apologized and said he wanted to make repara‐ tions, but that he would not stand down.

"I'm not a quitter," he said. "Quesnel is in my heart and I'm not about to aban‐ don it."

"I see this whole incident as being an opportunity .... This incident has spawned a whole new desire in pursuing reconciliation," he added.

While there is no mecha‐ nism to force a mayor to re‐ sign, Quesnel council di‐ rected staff to report back with options for censure and sanctions. Paull was elected to office in 2022 after previ‐ ously sitting as a councillor.