MP for Skeena Taylor Bachrach has joined a chorus calling out Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre for refusing to remove a candidate.
A letter was released friday signed by 37 elected and formerly elected officials urging the Conservative party to withdraw their endorsement of Aaron Gunn, candidate for the North Island-Powell River riding.
The letter states that Gunn made statements in the past denying the impacts of residential schools, and generational trauma and genocide experienced by First Nations Peoples in Canada.
Gunn took to social media to deny that those were his beliefs - saying “I have always been firm in recognizing the truly horrific events that transpired in residential schools, and any attempt to suggest otherwise is simply false.”
Today, MP Bachrach released a statement calling on Poilievre to reject all prospective Conservative candidates who deny the lived experiences of residential school survivors.
Bachrach said to allow someone to run who denies those harms sends a troubling message to First Nations people in the region.
Poilievre has called the allegations against Gunn “misinformation”.