BC Conservative Staffer Slams Truth and Reconciliation Flag

The B.C. Conservatives are again dealing with controversial comments perpetuating residential school denialism, this time from a high-profile staffer who had a key role in shaping the party.

Lindsay Shepherd posted on social media to condemn a Truth and Reconciliation flag being flown at the B.C. legislature and an orange shirt being displayed inside next to the provincial coat of arms.

“The Orange Shirt and the Orange Flag perpetuate untruths about Canadian history,” she posted Thursday on X, saying it is a “disgrace” the flag was flown at the legislature and the orange shirt display means “locals and tourists cannot view our insignia without having their eye drawn and directed to the orange shirt.”

On Friday, Shepherd deleted the post.

The BC NDP were quick to jump on the post, pointing out that B.C. Conservative MLAs Scott McInnis, Á’a:líya Warbus and Ward Stamer all took part in raising the flag.

The NDP called on Conservative MLAs to denounce Shepherd’s comments.

Residential school denialism has caused rifts within the Conservative Party of BC in the past.

After Warbus was named house leader for the party, former Conservative MLA Dallas Brodie publicly questioned the decision and then made comments mocking residential school survivors.

Leader John Rustad kicked Brodie out of the Conservative caucus because of the comments, and Brodie then formed her own party, OneBC, with another former Conservative MLA, Tara Armstrong.

In response to Brodie’s comments, Warbus called for Canadians to listen to the stories of survivors of residential school.

“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,” wrote Warbus, who is a member of the Stó:lō Nation.

Shepherd is now a communications officer with the Conservative Party of BC caucus, but she was a board member when a young group of political organizers were reshaping the party to be a more hard-right, populist choice for voters.

Following the party’s annual general meeting in Nanaimo in March, Shepherd said she had decided not to run again for the board. In response, the party’s X account posted that “Lindsay Shepherd was a key volunteer in the rebuilding of the party. Her dedication to the movement is incredible and we thank her for her service.”

Shepherd has repeatedly complained about Orange Shirt Day and has cast doubt on a 2020 announcement made by the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation that ground-penetrating radar had found indications of 215 unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

The discovery and announcement led to a countrywide reckoning of the widespread abuse at residential schools, including the high rate of death and disease suffered by the children who attended the institutions.

Many other First Nations have also conducted research and have announced preliminary findings that indicated unmarked graves on the former grounds of the schools.

But the facts of the widespread abuse that happened at residential schools have already been established by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which held hearings between 2007 and 2015 and heard wrenching testimony from over 6,500 survivors.

As a former writer for the right-wing news site True North, Shepherd was part of a group of contributors who repeatedly questioned whether there actually are unmarked graves at residential school sites.

Shepherd first became a public figure in 2017 when she was a teaching assistant at Wilfrid Laurier University and showed a class a TVOntario debate that included controversial University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson. Shepherd was reprimanded by her supervising professor and two other university officials. The university later exonerated Shepherd and apologized, and she was heralded in publications like the National Post as a victim of repressive university policies around free speech.

But she was also criticized for inviting Faith Goldy, a commentator who is open about her white supremacist views, to speak at the Laurier campus. In 2019, she appeared on a podcast hosted by another Canadian white supremacist, Jean-François Gariépy.

The Conservative Party of BC did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.