Indigenous leaders call for removal of Vancouver PPC candidate over ‘repugnant’ flyer

Emotional support or assistance for those who are affected by the residential school system can be found at Indian Residential School Survivors Society toll-free 1 (800) 721-0066 or 24 hr Crisis Line 1 (866) 925-4419.

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — A Vancouver People’s Party of Canada candidate has been distributing flyers comparing B.C.’s vaccine card to residential schools, and outraged Indigenous leaders are demanding accountability.

The flyer says it was “authorized by the official agent of Renate Siekmann,” who is running in Vancouver-Quadra– a riding that includes the Musqueam First Nation. The image of children outside of a residential school is overlaid with the text, “Discrimination is wrong: No vaccine passport.” In B.C., people need to show that they have received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in order to access non-essential businesses like restaurants, movie theatres, and gyms.

BC Assembly of First Nations (BCAFN) Regional Chief Terry Teegee says the comparison is deeply offensive, and trivializes the genocide of Indigenous people in Canada.

“Now, we’ve seen a number of graves this year, the finding of mass graves of Indigenous students that died in residential schools. They were there, abused, sexually, physically, mentally, abused. Children who were taken from their homes through church, state and police actions and brought to these residential schools — some of them never made it home,” he tells NEWS 1130.

“That’s in no way comparable to a [vaccine card] which clearly is something that is trying to keep people safe from this terrible disease that we know is COVID-19.”

BCAFN press release: BC Assembly of First Nations Calls for Removal of Peoples Party Candidate Renate Siekmann https://t.co/ZfYs6QJS20 pic.twitter.com/2OsjItLVmw

— BCAFN (@BCAFN) September 16, 2021

In May, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation confirmed, using ground-penetrating radar, that the remains of 215 children — some as young as three years old — had been found. The search of the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, which was once the largest in Canada’s residential school system, renewed calls for all sites to be searched across the country.

Less than a month later, the Cowessess First Nation confirmed 751 unmarked graves were uncovered on the grounds of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan. Later in June, the Lower Kootenay Band said a search using ground-penetrating radar found 182 human remains in unmarked graves near Cranbrook, close to where the Kootenay Indian Residential School once stood. Soon after that, the Penelakut Tribe confirmed more than 160 unmarked, undocumented graves at the site of a former residential school on their territory on the site of the Kuper Island Indian Residential School.

For Teegee, the timing of this flyer makes it all the more distressing.

“The comparison is just so wrong. It’s offensive and really repugnant to put that forward,” he says.

“Party Leader Maxine Bernier should really consider expelling Renate Siekmann.”

In a statement, the BCAFN calls explicitly on Bernier to “publicly denounce the false equivalency between vaccine passports and the violent removal of Indigenous children from their families as part of the Canadian government’s genocide against Indigenous peoples.”

‘People should be concerned about this political party’

However, Teegee notes the far-right PPC has been actively promoting and attending anti-vaccine rallies and circulating COVID-19 misinformation, something that should cause concern for all Canadians. Bernier himself has travelled across the country to attend anti-vaccine and anti-mask rallies.

“People should be concerned — a lot more than just the First Nations — about this political party about the misinformation that is being spread,”  he says.

“Misinformation and far-right, extreme points of view, puts lives at risk today. Not just Indigenous peoples, but all people.”

.@BCAFN's Chief Terry Teegee spoke to me about this flyer being distributed in Vancouver by a PPC candidate. He calls the comparison of the vaccine card to residential schools – in which Indigenous children were horrifically abused, and from which many never returned – "repugant" pic.twitter.com/d9MkcsweWp

— Lisa Steacy (@lisa_steacy) September 16, 2021

The party’s platform on the pandemic describes vaccine passports using the terms “authoritarian” and “segregation.” It also characterizes pandemic restrictions as “unconstitutional,” promising to repeal federal COVID-19-related measures like a vaccine requirement for international travel, to fire Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam, and to freeze federal assistance to provinces that impose “lockdowns.”

Siekmann’s website, in addition to promoting protests against COVID-19 restrictions and vaccines at hospitals, features a post called “Jumping to conclusions – Residential Schools.” In that section, she says the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools were “a tragedy” but that diseases like tuberculosis killed children and adults “of all races” in these institutions.

“Apologies have been made, as well as financial compensation. It’s a sad part of our history, but we need to accept the past, forgive and move on,” she writes.

She also says the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report sufficiently probed the deaths of Indigenous children. In fact, six of the Calls to Action specifically ask for more work to be done to determine exactly how many children died, who those children were, and where they were buried. The commission identified the names or information of more than 4,100 children who died in the residential school system. However, the exact number remains unknown.

According to 338.org, the PPC was polling at 6.1 per cent on Wednesday. On the eve of the 2019 federal election, it was polling at 2.5 per cent. In that election, Bernier lost his seat and the party captured 1.6 per cent of the popular vote.