A mayor in British Columbia has seen his travel budget removed along with being banned from committees after allegedly distributing a book on residential schools that criticizes the media response to alleged unmarked graves linked to residential schools in Kamloops and elsewhere.
Quesnel Mayor Ron Paull was accused of attempting to hand out copies of the book “Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools)” by Thomas Flanagan and C.P. Champion. The book, which contains a series of essays, is critical of the media’s response to the announcement of the discovery of the alleged grave sites in May 2021.
Councillor Scott Elliott was behind the motion to censure the mayor on April 30, saying that Mr. Paull had harmed their city’s reputation. “This should never have happened,” Mr. Elliott said. “We’ve had elders sit in here and explain what happened at residential schools, and having their children taken away, and then what took place there, and I just can’t fathom that we have to go back to this.”
Mr. Paull, meanwhile, denied the allegations that he had tried to hand out copies of the book during the April 30 meeting. He explained that he had brought a copy of the book, which belonged to his wife, to a meeting of the regional district and showed it to two colleagues, claiming he asked if the local library might do something with the book.
He added that a colleague had told him the book was a “good read” but said that he had yet to read it himself. “I do recall, however, saying that according to the online reviews of the book, many reviewers noted the book as a ‘good read.'”
Despite the mayor’s apology for bringing the book to the regional district meeting, the Quesnel city council voted to remove Mr. Paull from committees and suspended his travel budget for conferences.
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The Lhtako Dene Nation, a nearby First Nation, has also banned Mr. Paull from their territory unless formally invited and stated that they will not work with him but would work with other members of city council.
The Epoch Times reached out to Mr. Paull for comment on the matter but was told the mayor was not answering questions from the media by his executive assistant.
Mr. Flanagan, one of the authors of the book, says that those making claims about the book don’t seem to have read it, and are attaching labels without knowing its contents.
“I wish the Quesnel city council had read the book before voting to condemn it,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Flanagan said that while children did die while attending residential schools, most died of diseases like tuberculosis, and said there is no evidence of children being murdered in residential schools.
“Not a single child burial has been found anywhere in connection with a residential school. Ground penetrating radar shows only soil disturbances and does not demonstrate a burial. In several cases where such soil disturbances have been tested by excavation, nothing has been found.”
He added that all the attention has in fact boosted sales for the book.
“Attempts to condemn a book have the opposite effect. As of this morning, ‘Grave Error’ is Amazon’s no. 2 best seller among all books that it sells in Canada,” he said on May 3.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
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