Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre stood by a British Columbia candidate when he brought his campaign to the province Saturday, as calls mount for Aaron Gunn to be removed over past comments about the history of Canada’s residential schools.
Poilievre was asked about reports of a letter from various B.C. Indigenous and municipal leaders that called for Gunn’s removal and said he has denied the impact of residential schools and intergenerational trauma among Indigenous Peoples.
But Poilievre said that was “false.”
“He has not denied the impact of residential schools. That’s just misinformation,” the Conservative leader said of the candidate for North Island-Powell River.
“In fact, he has said that he wants to continue to condemn the residential schools and build stronger partnerships with First Nations people to unlock our resources so that we can produce incredible paycheques and opportunities for First Nations communities,” Poilievre told a press conference in Osoyoos, B.C.
In videos and statements posted online in 2020 and 2021, Gunn said the residential school system did not constitute genocide and the schools are “much-maligned.”
“There was no genocide. Stop lying to people and read a book,” Gunn wrote in 2020.
B.C.’s First Nations Leadership Council -- comprised of the leaders of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, the First Nations Summit and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs -- is among the groups that have condemned Gunn’s comments.
“Such attitudes are extremely harmful and divisive and should not be held by those in public office,” the leadership council said in a statement issued Thursday.
Gunn issued a statement on social media Thursday saying he has “always been firm in recognizing the truly horrific events that transpired in residential schools, and any attempt to suggest otherwise is simply false.”
Poilievre said the Conservatives are the only party offering a “bright future” for First Nations by spurring resource development that would bring money and opportunities to communities.
He said he would bring in a “First Nations resource charge,” allowing companies to pay taxes directly to communities so they can have “incredible prosperity.”
More than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools, the last of which closed in 1996.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was tasked with researching the residential school system, found the institutions were rife with abuse, with children separated from their families and barred from visiting with their families.
It concluded that the schools were intended for cultural genocide, saying they were a systematic “attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples.”
At the campaign stop in Osoyoos, Poilievre also promised to cut bureaucratic red tape by 25 per cent in two years, part of his plan for a “two-for-one” law that mandates two regulations be repealed for every new one that is brought in.
He said the plan would also require that for every dollar in new administrative costs, two dollars must be cut elsewhere to ease the burden.
Poilievre said that if a Conservative government is elected, it will pass a law that requires Canada’s auditor general to verify the administrative changes.
The Conservative leader then stopped at a motorsports club in Oliver, B.C., where he drove around the track with his wife in a brand new blue Corvette, before ending the day addressing an overflowing crowd at a rally in nearby Penticton.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 5, 2025.
