Quesnel censures mayor, saying his actions jeopardize Indigenous relations

QUESNEL — Councillors in Quesnel have voted unanimously to censure their mayor, saying his actions related to a book that denies the harms of Canada’s residential school system have jeopardized the city’s relationship with Indigenous communities.

Coun. Scott Elliott made the motion, saying all the work that has been done to rebrand the city has been “demolished” by Mayor Ron Paull’s actions.

“This should never have happened,” Elliott said, adding he hoped Tuesday’s meeting would mark the start of a path to repair relationships between Indigenous Peoples and the Interior city.

“We’ve had elders sit in here and explain what happened at residential schools, and having their children taken away, and then what took place there, and I just can’t fathom that we have to go back to this,” Elliott told the mayor and council.

A report to council says Paull “attempted to distribute” a copy of the book, titled Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools),” at a Cariboo Regional District board meeting where he was representing the city.

Paull denied “distributing” the book and told Tuesday’s meeting that his work on advancing reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples is a matter of public record.

The book’s editors introduce it as a response to “moral panic unleashed” after the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation announced in May 2021 that it had identified what it believed to be the unmarked graves of more than 200 children at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops.

The revelation from the First Nation sparked a countrywide awakening about some of the darkest chapters in Canada’s history.

Quesnel council voted to pass the motion censuring the mayor after Paull left the room on Tuesday.

The motion said he had “damaged the relationship” between the city and Indigenous communities, including the Lhtako Dene Nation.

It also said Paull’s actions were “disrespectful to the history of residential schools” and contrary to the city’s goals of mutual respect and reconciliation.

The councillors then voted unanimously on a motion placing sanctions on the mayor, including not allowing him to represent the city at the Cariboo Regional District and Northern Development Initiative Trust.

Paull has also been removed from city committees, and his travel budget for conferences such as the Union of B.C. Municipalities gathering has been suspended.

The council agreed to revisit the sanctions in 90 days.

Before the votes, the mayor read a letter saying he took his wife’s copy of the book to a Cariboo Regional District meeting and showed it to two colleagues in the context of wondering what the district’s library might do with it.

Paull said he would give those “launching this charge” against him “the benefit of the doubt,” adding: “This is all based on a misunderstanding.”

He said one of his colleagues claimed he had referred to the book as a “good read,” but he has not read it so he couldn’t have made such a direct statement.

The mayor apologized for “picking the wrong book” to take to the regional district meeting in nearby Williams Lake, saying he “didn’t mean any harm.”