By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
As Canadians rally around the flag making conscious decisions to purchase Canadian products and services in the face of the US president’s bellicose trade posturing, five BC MLA’s voted against a motion to condemn Donald Trump’s attack on Canada’s sovereignty.
The motion that Coquitlam-Maillardville NDP MLA Jennifer Blatherwick put forward Monday morning said the house “condemns President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs as wrong and unjustified measures aimed at threatening Canadian sovereignty and endorses the nationally-coordinated “Team Canada” plan to respond with proportionate retaliatory action if necessary including strategically targeting industries and regions such as products from Republican states, to maximize pressure to deter President Trump from implementing or continuing tariffs.”
Conservative Party MLAs Dallas Brodie, Heather Maahs, Jordan Kealy, Tara Armstrong and Brent Chapman all voted against the motion while Harman Bhangu, who had spoken against the motion earlier in the day, skipped the vote.
Armstrong has claimed the BC NDP “brought the tariff threat upon us in the first place” while Maahs has said “Eby needs to comply” with Trump.
BC Conservative leader John Rustad brushed off the break in solidarity saying, “What family in this province doesn’t have issues and divisions in it,” reiterating that his MLAs were free to express their own views.
A call to Boundary-Similkameen MLA Donegal Wilson by the Times Chronicle went unanswered, but it’s understood she was not one of the five opposing voices.
Rustad himself voted in support of the motion but previously was on the record saying “retaliatory tariffs will only invite more problems coming from the President” and called provincial plans to target Republican states “dangerous and irresponsible” and “cross-border political interference.”
Responding to the conflicting viewpoints within the opposition ranks, Blatherwick said: “Regardless of how John Rustad and his MLAs voted on this motion, their opposition to retaliatory action against Donald Trump has been consistent and clear.
“They can’t hide their position to respond to Trump’s tariffs with weakness instead of strength. Canadians expect their leaders to stand up to Donald Trump with a tough and strategic approach and that is exactly what we will continue to do.”
Meanwhile, Rustad is firefighting on another front after calls for Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Dallas Brodie to take down social media posts expressing residential school denials have gone un-actioned.
In her posts, Brodie said there are “zero” confirmed child burial sites at the former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. Brodie’s post stated: “The number of confirmed child burials at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site is zero . . . No one should be afraid of the truth. Not lawyers, their governing bodies, or anyone else.”
The Kamloops Indian Residential School which was recently made a national historic site.
Archives Deschâtelets-NDC, Richelieu photo via Wikipedia
Apparently at issue for Brodie is the wordage around the discovery of 215 remains in unmarked graves by ground-penetrating radar undertaken at the behest of the Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc in 2021 which for her does not technically “confirm” the children’s remains.
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.
In a statement Monday he went on to say, “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.”
Within the party BC Conservative house leader and Chilliwack-Cultus Lake MLA, herself First Nations, Á’a:líya Warbus wrote on X, “Inform yourself, get the latest facts, research AND talk to survivors. Questioning the narratives of people who lived and survived these atrocities, is nothing but harmful and taking us backward in reconciliation,” she wrote.
The divisions within the party have led to calls for Rustad’s removal as party leader by former party members. The party will be holding its annual general meeting in Nanaimo this weekend from Feb. 28 to March 2.
