A Progressive Conservative candidate for a seat in the New Brunswick Legislature is facing calls she withdraw from the campaign after she compared protections for 2SLGTBQ+ students to the systematic taking of Indigenous children from their parents to place them in residential schools.
Sherry Wilson said the federal system of forcing tens of thousands of First Nations, Inuit and Métis children into the schools was “only allowed to happen because children enrolled in school were isolated from their parents’ oversight, input and influence.”
She implied there was a parallel between that and the province’s original Policy 713 — which allowed 2SLGBTQ+ students to adopt names and pronouns at school without their parents knowing.
“We cannot afford to repeat the tragic mistakes that destroyed the lives of thousands of Indigenous families,” Wilson, the PC candidate in Albert-Riverview, wrote in the statement posted on social media.
“Therefore I am committed to keeping the parents of minor children aware of, and involved in, their children’s development while they are entrusted to our government schools.”
Sherry Wilson faces calls to withdraw from election for comparing original 2SLGBTQ+ policy to residential schools.
The post was removed from Wilson’s Facebook page Tuesday morning.
The PC government changed Policy 713 last year to require parental consent if students under 16 wanted to adopt new names and pronouns consistent with their gender identity.
PC Leader Blaine Higgs has described the issue as parents having the right to know what is happening in their children’s lives, and said at one point last year that “children are being taught to lie to their parents.”
But Higgs said at a campaign stop Tuesday morning that there was no parallel between the “trauma” of residential schools and today’s policy debate and the post “missed the mark.”
“There isn’t a comparison to be made there,” he said.
Chief Terry Richarson of the Pabineau First Nation urged Higgs to remove Wilson as a PC candidate.
“This woman should not be allowed to run for the Conservative Party of NB,” he wrote in a Facebook post.
“Premier Higgs you need to have this woman withdraw immediately. … Shame on you and shame on your party on this day dedicated to the memory of those children who were killed for their beliefs!!”
Six Wolastoqey chiefs also made that call in a statement issued Tuesday.
Higgs said he would not remove Wilson because she had withdrawn the post.
He said it was not written by anyone with the PC campaign and that the party’s position on residential schools was reflected in his own post on Monday, which spoke of the “deep wounds” inflicted on those who were forced into the system and their descendants.
The PC campaign did not respond to a CBC News request for an interview with Wilson.
Richardson said in an interview that removing the post was “a step” but said Higgs should apologize to Indigenous people and arrange for training for his candidates on the history of residential schools.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada called the residential school system “a systematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples.”
The goal, the commission said, was “cultural genocide.”
Wilson, the minister for mental health and addiction in the PC government, posted the statement on Monday, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
It was liked with a heart emoji by another PC candidate, Rob Weir of Riverview.
Tuesday is the deadline for candidates to register with Elections New Brunswick, so removing Wilson as a candidate could leave the PCs without anyone on the ballot in Albert-Riverview.
Liberal Leader Susan Holt also denounced Wilson’s comparison.
“Minister Wilson’s statement is completely disrespectful and inappropriate,” she said in a statement.
“Clearly it shows her lack of understanding of basic history and is yet another example of this government’s disrespect for First Nations.”
Holt said it was up to Higgs whether Wilson should be dropped as a PC candidate.
“He has certainly kicked people out of his cabinet and caucus when they didn’t agree with him,” she said by email.
Green candidate Megan Mitton called on Wilson to apologize and for Higgs to denounce the statement.
“This is abhorrent, it’s indefensible, and it’s completely wrong,” she said in a post on X.
Wilson not the first
Wilson isn’t the first Progressive Conservative to draw the parallel between policies to protect 2SLGBTQ+ children and the residential school system.
Hampton-Fundy-St. Martins candidate Faytene Grasseschi made the comparison as a Christian conservative activist, before becoming a PC candidate last year.
She told CBC News in a July 2023 interview it was an Indigenous parent who first told her there was a parallel.
“It’s an ideology. It’s a mindset that says the children belong to the government, not the family, not the parents,” she said.
Grasseschi acknowledged the potential consequences of the original Policy 713 weren’t as severe as children being taken hundreds of miles away from their families and losing their Indigenous language and culture.
“In terms of children actually physically being taken away to another — yeah, absolutely,” she said. “But I think the point was it’s an ideology.”
