About 40 protesters gathered in Walnut Grove to rally against an event featuring OneBC MLA Dallas Brodie.
The Vancouver-Quilchena MLA has seen protesters show up at multiple events in recent months, after making many controversial statements, particularly about residential schools.
“It is important for me as a daughter of a residential school survivor, to be here,” said Cecelia Reekie, who organized the protest. “My dad is no longer here in this world. If he knew and could hear what was being said, it would be devastating for him.”
The Langley event, held at Walnut Grove’s Riverside Calvary Chapel, was organized by the Action4Canada organization, and featured its leader Tanya Gaw and host Danielle Pistilli.
Brodie is a former B.C. Conservative MLA who was ejected from the party by then-leader John Rustad in March 2025, after she used a mocking voice to denigrate Indigenous residential school survivors during a podcast interview.
She has also denied that there were any children buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
After creating OneBC as a new party, she has used her seat in the B.C. Legislature to attempt to ban land acknowledgements and end National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Reekie put out the word about the protest earlier this week, and it was publicized on both the Reconciliation Langley and Langley Pride Society Facebook pages.
Many of the people in the crowd wore orange Every Child Matters shirts and flags, or carried Pride flags.
Former local NDP candidate Holly Isaac and party member James Loeffler were part of the protest.
Isaac said she believed Brodie was looking to scapegoat already marginalized people.
“Hate has no place in Langley,” said Loeffler.
Others were, like Reekie, descendants of residential school survivors.
“It’s hurtful, it’s hurtful to our elders, to our whole community,” said Kim Hall, whose mother was a residential day school survivor.
Hall lives in Maple Ridge but is part of the Pinaymootang First Nation and is from Fairford, Manitoba.
Her husband Clarence Hall, of the Sechelt First Nation, also said the event was hurtful to his family. His great-grandmother was a residential school survivor.
Several religious leaders also spoke at the protest, including Rev. Sophia Ducey of the United Churches of Canada, and Rev. Clarence Li, the rector of Aldergrove’s St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church.
The event was billed by Action4Canada as a “powerful night of truth, courage and empowerment,” with entry by donation.
“Every dollar you give is carefully stewarded to maximize its impact in protecting Canadian sovereignty, preserving our rights and freedoms, and upholding the Christian biblical principles and values that form the foundation of our nation,” said the description of the event on the group’s website.
There were about half a dozen RCMP officers on hand at the event.
Protests have followed Brodie in recent months. On Feb. 12 in Creston, about 300 people turned out for a peaceful protest at a similar event. In January several hundred protesters met Brodie at UBC, in an event that turned heated.