B.C. Opposition law critic defies Rustad’s request to delete ‘zero graves’ comment

The B.C. Conservatives’ attorney general critic is defying Opposition Leader John Rustad’s request to take down a social-media post saying there are “zero” confirmed child burial sites at the former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

Dallas Brodie’s post on the social-media platform X was called “racist denialist rhetoric” by Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

“The comments made by Ms. Brodie are deeply disturbing, and ignore the ample physical, archival, and testimonial evidence which detail horrific human rights abuses and atrocities against Indigenous peoples at residential schools,” Phillip said in a statement on Monday.

In Saturday’s social-media post, Brodie questions the “apparent mistreatment” of a lawyer who had asked for the rewording of Law Society training material about residential schools.

She says she was “compelled to act” as the attorney general critic.

“The number of confirmed child burials at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site is zero,” her post says.

She adds: “Can we trust our legal system if lawyers are no longer free to insist upon the facts?”

Rustad said Monday morning he asked Brodie to delete the post over concern that her views could be “misinterpreted” to refer to “the whole issue” of residential schools, as opposed to there not being any bodies “exhumed or found” at the Kamloops site.

Rustad, a former minister of Aboriginal relations and reconciliation, said he attended Truth and Reconciliation hearings when they came to Vancouver and he knew that thousands of children did not return home from the schools, and those who died were not sent home for burial.

“They buried them on sites and … just about every residential school in the country has a cemetery, has children who passed at a residential school who have been buried there, so that’s just the facts with it, and so that’s the concern, that’s the issue.”

Brodie’s post on X hadn’t been removed by late Monday. It had been viewed more than 460,000 times.

In a thread of posts on X, Brodie said she would reach out to Attorney General Niki Sharma and the Law Society of British Columbia in the coming days about the situation facing lawyer James Heller.

Brodie’s posts shared a link to an article about Heller, who unsuccessfully pushed last year for the society’s training material to say there were “potentially” burial sites at the former residential school in Kamloops instead of using more definitive language.

Heller is now suing the society over what he calls “false and defamatory” imputations of racism that he says the society republished.

The Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc First Nation said in 2021 that ground-penetrating radar provided “confirmation of the remains of 215 children” at the school site but last year said the radar found “confirmation of 215 anomalies.”

Brodie and the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc First Nation have not responded to requests for comment, while Heller declined to speak on the record.

The Law Society of B.C. said it couldn’t provide comment on the case because the matter was before the courts.

Sharma said on Monday that “thousands of children were sent to residential schools to eradicate their First Nations culture, and many of those children never returned home.”

“It’s a shame that the Conservatives are focused on dividing people, rather than on bringing them together so we can build a stronger future here in B.C.,” Sharma said in a statement.

She later told reporters in the legislature that she was concerned that Brodie’s social-media post wasn’t removed as Rustad had requested.

“What does that say about his leadership and the Conservative Party of B.C., that these messages are coming from them?”

She said that as of Monday afternoon, Brodie had not reached out to her.

Provincial Indigenous Relations Minister Christine Boyle said on social media that Brodie’s comments were “abhorrent behaviour” and there is “no place in B.C. for residential school denialism.”

Brodie had previously drawn criticism for comments made when she was running as a candidate in Vancouver-Quilchena in last fall’s B.C. election.

She said that when “people say they want to be First Nations,” that came with the responsibility to take care of people in the Downtown Eastside.

Canada’s special interlocutor on unmarked graves and missing children says in a report issued last year that despite the “well-documented reality” of residential-school deaths, some Canadians have made a concerted effort to attack the truths of survivors, Indigenous families and communities.

The report by Kimberly Murray says the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc made an announcement “confirming that up to 215 potential unmarked burials” took place at the Kamloops school site, resulting in global attention for the issue.

More than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools in Canada, the last of which closed in 1996.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 24, 2025.

Chuck Chiang and Marcy Nicholson, The Canadian Press