Ejected MLA says Opposition Leader Rustad selling B.C. to ‘elite racial minority’

By Canadian Press on March 7, 2025.

VICTORIA — The B.C. Conservatives’ former attorney general critic has lashed out at leader John Rustad, suggesting he and Premier David Eby are beholden to “an elite racial minority” after she was ejected from the Opposition caucus in a row over residential schools.

Dallas Brodie was dumped by Rustad on Friday, the day after a showdown in the Conservative caucus room in which Rustad said Brodie challenged colleagues to fire her and asked for a vote on her removal before walking out.

“The truth is a threat to powerful vested interests in the multi-billion-dollar reconciliation industry,” Brodie said in a statement later on Friday.

“Politicians like David Eby and John Rustad are willing to sell off British Columbia’s wealth and power, transferring it from the public to an elite racial minority — enriching opportunistic lawyers, consultants, and chiefs along the way.”

It was an explosive culmination to the rift between Rustad and Brodie that has been brewing since she posted on social media on Feb. 22 that “zero” child burials had been confirmed at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

Brodie also questioned the “apparent mistreatment” of a lawyer who had asked for the rewording of Law Society training material about residential schools.

Brodie defied Rustad’s request to delete the post, and later appeared in a video saying colleagues who criticized her belonged in the governing NDP, appearing to single out Conservative house leader A’aliya Warbus, who is Indigenous.

“There’s a person in our party who’s Indigenous, and she, you know, was super angry and went to town and joined the NDP to call me out,” Brodie said in the video posted to social media.

She also said it was important to have “the truth” about residential schools, “not his truth, her truth, my grandmother’s truth … this stuff has to stop.”

Brodie used a high-pitched singsong voice as she mimicked those she disagreed with.

By Friday, Rustad had had enough.

“As a 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 — MLA Brodie is not welcome to return to our Conservative Party of BC Caucus,” Rustad said in a statement.

In remarks aimed directly at the Member for Vancouver-Quilchena, Rustad said he believed strongly in free speech “however, using your stature and platform as an MLA to mock testimony from victims alleging abuse, including child sex abuse, is where I draw the line.”

Rustad said later in a phone interview that he tried to talk with Brodie.

“She refused to have that conversation, and so we felt it required to take the step that she will not be invited back into caucus,” Rustad said, calling it an “extremely difficult decision.”

“I ran on and built this party on one finite principle, that is that we’re going to stand for what’s right.”

He added that Brodie recently talked about leaving politics and that she wasn’t happy with the job.

“I don’t know if that’s still what she’s thinking, or whether she’s going to stay involved in politics. It is possible there may be some others who support her position and what she did,” Rustad said, hinting at divisions in the party.

Brodie had claimed in the video that she had the support of about 20 MLAs who were “100 per cent behind” her.

Peter Milobar, Conservative MLA for Kamloops Centre and finance critic, said in a phone interview that he “absolutely” agreed with Rustad’s decision.

Milobar, whose wife and children are Indigenous, spoke in the legislature last month about residential school denialism.

Rustad said in his statement that Brodie’s ejection “has nothing to do with whether or not there are undiscovered remains at Kamloops Indian Residential School, where it is objectively true that no new bodies have been found.”

“This is about an elected MLA using her position of authority to mock testimony of survivors of abuse, including child sex abuse,” said Rustad, a former minister of aboriginal relations and reconciliation.

B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma said in a statement that what Brodie put residential school survivors through was “abhorrent.”

“It is deeply unfortunate that John Rustad failed to act for two weeks after her initial comment, and again yesterday even after she mocked residential school survivors and attacked members of his own caucus,” Sharma said.

She said it was “a relief to see John Rustad finally act.”

Conservative Brennan Day had posted a photo with Warbus on Thursday saying he was “proud to stand behind” her.

Day warned in an interview on Friday against “watering down” the conversation about residential schools. He was speaking before Brodie’s ejection was announced, but said afterwards that he supported Rustad’s decision.

Justin Leifso, assistant professor of political science at the University of Victoria, said in an emailed statement that “there really weren’t a lot of options for Rustad here.”

He added that it was “notable” that Rustad’s statement “reiterates doubts about residential schools.”

“Rustad gets around it by focusing on the dismissive nature of Brodie’s tone rather than her participating in residential school denialism — seems to me that the party is continuing to try to walk a very fine line, even if they’ve now removed Brodie from caucus,” Leifso said.

Steve Kooner, Conservative MLA for Richmond-Queensborough, will be the party’s sole critic for attorney general after sharing the position with Brodie, Rustad said.

Brodie’s Feb. 22 posts had shared a link to an article about lawyer James 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’s ejection reduces the B.C. Conservative ranks in the legislature to 43.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 7, 2025.

Marcy Nicholson, The Canadian Press