B.C. First Nation calls for city councillor's resignation following remarks about residential schools

The Williams Lake Indian Band is calling for a Williams Lake city councillor to resign after she made "insulting" remarks about residential schools during a city council meeting this week.

On Tuesday, city council was discussing a development project proposed by the Williams Lake Indian Band — which would be built on a piece of band land that is also inside the municipality — when Coun. Marnie Brenner, acknowledging the role of reconciliation in the project, made her remarks. 

"I don't think there's any person in Williams Lake that will not — that does not — acknowledge there was some really terrible things that happened here in Williams Lake and in the past," she said. 

"The more I talk to community members in the different areas that I know, I hear more and more things that 'wow, that really happened.' But I've also heard stories of where people, when they shut down the schools, and they've had to go back to school in Riske Creek and stuff where they've been disappointed that they had to leave residential school because they had a pool there."

Brenner was referring to St. Joseph's Mission near Williams Lake, which was torn down in the 1980s. 

Mayor Walt Cobb also noted there was a hockey team at the residential school. 

Brenner added that she didn't want anyone to take offence to her comment, but that "there are always two sides."

Upon hearing Brenner's remarks, Williams Lake Indian Band Chief Willie Sellars said he felt "outrage, disgust and embarrassment."

"There's a lack of education there that allows somebody to make those statements before thinking and that's something that needs to change in these levels of government because you know as much as we want to say reconciliation is happening and has happened there's still a lot of work to do," Sellars told Radio West host Sarah Penton. 

Sellars said the intergenerational trauma that impacts all First Nation communities is still being felt, and to discredit that is an "insult, it is disgusting and disgraceful."

"It's an education piece," he said. "The whole idea of it is wrong and it is not something that we should be proud of at all."

Councillor apologizes

Brenner, who is Indigenous, was adopted by a non-Indigenous family in the 1960s. She is a registered nurse and used to work for Three Corners Health Services Society, which incorporates traditional health practices into health-care for Secwépemc community members. 

"I have my own thoughts about reconciliation and other contemporary Indigenous issues because of my lived experience," Brenner said in a written statement, emailed to CBC by the city's corporate engagement officer.  

She apologized for her choice of words, and clarified that her intention was to "highlight the importance and value of honest, open dialogue around truth and reconciliation, especially around the many difficult things that aboriginal people face daily."

Sellars said the Williams Lake Indian Band appreciates Brenner's effort to acknowledge the impact her remarks have, but they want her to attend their council meeting to discuss her comments in person. 

"She needs to answer to the leadership if you're going to be making comments like that," Sellars said. 

Regardless of the apology, the Williams Lake Indian Band wants Brenner to step down. 

"We do not feel confident in leadership at the City of Williams Lake to be an advocate for this region until they come up with a public apology and actually look to have some meaningful engagement with the Williams Lake Indian Band and First Nation people of this region," Sellars said. 

"Mayor Walt Cobb also chimed in on some of those statements that she was making and members of city council sat by the wayside while these comments were being made and didn't say a word."