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A progressive conservative candidate for a seat in the New Brunswick legislature is facing calls for her to withdraw from the campaign after comparing protections for 2SLGTBQ+ students to the systematic taking of Indigenous children from their parents to place them in residential to install schools.
Sherry Wilson said the federal system of forcing tens of thousands of First Nations, Inuit and Métis children into schools “was only allowed to happen because children attending school were isolated from their parents’ supervision, input and influence. ”
She suggested there was a parallel between that policy and the province’s original Policy 713, which allowed 2SLGBTQ+ students to adopt names and pronouns at school without their parents’ knowledge.
“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 on social media.
“Therefore, I am determined to keep the parents of minor children aware and involved in the development of their children while they are entrusted to our government schools.”
Sherry Wilson is facing calls to withdraw from the election as he likens the original 2SLGBTQ+ policy to residential schools.
The post was removed from Wilson’s Facebook page Tuesday morning.
The PC government last year amended Policy 713 to require parental consent if students under 16 want to adopt new names and pronouns consistent with their gender identity.
PC leader Blaine Higgs has described the issue as parents having a right to know what is happening in their children’s lives, saying at one point last year that “children are taught to lie to their parents.”
But Higgs said during a campaign stop Tuesday morning that there was no parallel between the “trauma” of residential schools and the current policy debate, and that the post “missed the point.”
“There is no comparison,” he said.
Chief Terry Richarson of the Pabineau First Nation urged Higgs to remove Wilson as the PC candidate.
“This woman should not be allowed to run for the Conservative Party of NB,” he wrote in a Facebook post.
“Prime Minister Higgs, you must ensure that this woman withdraws immediately. … Shame and shame on you for celebrating on this day dedicated to the memory of those children who were murdered for their beliefs!!”
Six Wolastoqey chiefs also made the call in a statement issued on Tuesday.
Higgs said he would not remove Wilson because she retracted the post.
He said it was not written by anyone from the PC campaign and that the party’s position on residential schools was reflected in his own post on Monday, in which he spoke of the “deep wounds” inflicted on those who joined the system were forced 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 “one step” but said Higgs should apologize to Indigenous people and arrange 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 effort to destroy indigenous cultures and languages and assimilate indigenous peoples so that they no longer existed as separate peoples.”
The goal, the commission said, was “cultural genocide.”
Wilson, the minister for mental health and addictions in the PC government, posted the statement on Monday, National Truth and Reconciliation Day.
Another PC candidate, Rob Weir of Riverview, liked it with a heart emoji.
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 criticized Wilson’s comparison.
“Secretary Wilson’s statement is completely disrespectful and inappropriate,” she said in a statement.
“It clearly shows its lack of understanding of basic history and is yet another example of this government’s lack of respect for First Nations.”
Holt said it was up to Higgs whether Wilson should be ousted as the PC candidate.
“He has certainly kicked people out of his Cabinet and caucus if they disagreed with him,” she said by email.
Green candidate Megan Mitton called on Wilson to apologize and Higgs to denounce the statement.
“This is abhorrent, indefensible and completely wrong,” she said in a post on X.
Wilson not the first
Wilson is not the first progressive conservative to draw the parallel between policies protecting 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 that it was an Indigenous parent who first told her there was a parallel.
“It’s an ideology. It is a mentality that says the children belong to the government, not to the family, not to the parents,” she said.
Grasseschi acknowledged that the potential consequences of the original Policy 713 were not as serious as children being taken hundreds of miles from their families and losing their indigenous language and culture.
“When it comes to children actually being physically taken to another person, yes, absolutely,” she said. “But I think the point was that it is an ideology.”
