Syilx Okanagan chiefs are joining a chorus of calls for the resignation of Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Dallas Brodie, leader of the fledgling One B.C. party, whose outspoken views on the legacy of Canadian residential schools got her booted from the B.C. Conservative caucus earlier this year.
In a Nov. 5 press release, the Chiefs Executive Council of the Okanagan Nation Alliance endorsed previous calls from the First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC) for Brodie to resign immediately.
Brodie shared a photo on her X account in early October of her standing in front of an Every Child Matters billboard on Penticton Indian Band land, holding a sign of her own that read ‘Zero bodies,’ referencing the 215 suspected unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site.
The picture was widely panned, and now the Syilx Okanagan chiefs are calling the stunt taxpayer-funded racism.
“Brodie stands accused of using public funds, inside and outside the B.C. Legislature, to create and distribute racist and anti-Indigenous materials,” reads Wednesday’s press release, which highlighted Brodie’s ‘Zero bodies’ sign.
Penticton Indian Band Chief Greg Gabriel and Tribal Chair Clarence Louie of the Okanagan Nation Alliance, issued a joint statement calling for Brodie’s resignation.
“MLA Brodie owes our Elders and Indian Residential School survivors an apology. She owes the voters of Vancouver-Quilchena an apology. She owes all British Columbians an apology for her hateful and divisive rhetoric, which belongs in the dustbin of history, not the halls of the B.C. Legislature,” Gabriel and Louie said.
“As we have said before, political leaders who hold and espouse racist and backward views, are disqualified from public service, as such views and comments are hateful and hurtful to Indigenous people, and put at risk the government-to-government relationship with Indigenous Nations on whose land this province depends.”
The One B.C. party was formed after Brodie was ousted from the Conservative caucus in March, after she appeared on a podcast and used a mocking, child-like voice to mimic residential school survivors, according to her own party leader at the time, John Rustad. Rustad said then that Brodie’s removal was the “result of her decision to publicly mock and belittle testimony from former residential school students, including by mimicking individuals recounting stories of abuses — including child sex abuse.”
Two B.C. Consevative MLAs — Jordan Kealy of Peace River North and Tara Armstrong of Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream — defected from the Conservative Party in solidarity with Brodie.
Armstrong went on to join Brodie’s One B.C. party, which was registered in June.
Brodie’s response to the FNLC’s call for her to resign earlier this week was to tell them they should step down instead.
“To this day, the FNLC website claims there were ‘215 children found buried’ in Kamloops. It’s Grand Chief Stewart Phillip who should resign in disgrace for propagating the greatest lie in Canadian history,” Brodie said on her X account Monday, Nov. 3.
The One B.C. party was lambasted by critics from all sides of the political spectrum when it introduced a bill last month to ban B.C. public employees from making Indigenous land acknowledgements. The bill was soundly defeated and did not pass first reading.
Brodie did not respond to a request for comment by the time of this story’s publication.
— With files from Mark Page and Lauren Collins