Church comments force the head of B.C. Civil Liberties to step down
The head of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association — one of the most significant civil rights groups in the country — has left her job following an uproar after a social media post that seemed to celebrate the burning of Catholic churches.
In late June, Harsha Walia quote-tweeted a Vice news report regarding Catholic churches that had been burned, following the discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves near the sites of former residential schools.
“Burn it all down,” Walia wrote.
On Friday, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association announced Walia had resigned and that the board of directors had accepted her resignation “with heavy hearts.”
In a separate letter, the board of directors said, following Walia’s tweet, the organization faced “inexcusable racism and misogyny and threats to physical and mental safety.”
“We encountered a wave of hateful commentary, fueled by the fact that our executive director is a racialized woman leader.”
Still, the association said
Walia’s tweet, “using a particular turn of phrase in that context” — ie. “burn it all down” — “left some people with the wrong impression about the values and principles to which we adhere.”
“We regret the misunderstanding that was caused by the tweet and apologize for the harm the words caused,” the letter said.
The initial tweet caused an uproar among right-wing bloggers and conservative commentators in Canada — and abroad.
Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host, dedicated a segment to church burnings, and called Walia “a monster” in his commentary, before moving on to former Liberal adviser Gerald Butts, who suggested in a tweet that the burning of churches might be “understandable.”
Throughout the drama, Walia has had her supporters; some suggested the idiomatic “burn it all down” had been misconstrued by her critics. In a piece written for The Tyee, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, the head of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, wrote that “burn it all down” is a call for decolonization not arson, and said the outrage is “pearl clutching.”