Calls grow for Poilievre to pull Conservative candidate Gunn

The chorus of First Nations leaders denouncing North Island-Powell River Conservative candidate Aaron Gunn continues to rise. The leaders are urging federal leader Pierre Poilievre to remove him for social media posts that “advance residential school denialism,” they said in a statement released Thursday.

The First Nations Leadership Council said its members are angered and disturbed, joining calls for the Conservatives to drop Gunn as a candidate for his “horrific and offensive posts” on X (formerly Twitter) between 2019 and 2021. 

In his tweets, Gunn argues the treatment of Indigenous people isn’t genocide, while other posts vigorously defend the legacy of the country’s first prime minister, John A MacDonald. 

Denying that Indigenous people faced genocide in Canada and saying residential schools were requested by Indigenous communities are “extremely harmful and divisive and should not be held by those in public office,” said the leadership council, comprised of executives from the BC Assembly of First Nations, First Nations Summit and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs. 

'Appalling'

“For somebody seeking public office to hold such racist views is appalling,” said Bob Chamberlin, who served 14 years as the elected chief for the Kwikwasutinuxw Haxwa’mis Nation and nine as the vice-president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs. 

Indigenous people make up nearly 13 per cent of the population in the riding, which includes more than 20 First Nations communities on both coasts of North Vancouver Island and along the Sunshine Coast and Central Coast on BC’s mainland. 

The Assembly of First Nations has identified the North Island-Powell River riding as one of 36 across the country where First Nations could decide the outcome in the upcoming election. Indigenous voters in the riding make up 6.5 per cent of the electorate.

This week, the Conservatives have dropped four federal candidates.Chamberlin wants Gunn to be the fifth. 

Disparaging residential school experiences and denying Canada’s colonial impacts on Indigenous people ignore the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said Chamberlin, who lives in the northern Vancouver Island riding. 

Members of House of Commons, including Poilievre, also passed a unanimous motion recognizing residential schools as genocide in 2022. 

“Aaron Gunn is making clear he’s not going to represent First Nations issues at all, except to diminish them,” Chamberlin said. “So, I don't think it's uncalled for to have him removed from the ballot.” 

Gunn has refused repeated interview requests by Canada’s National Observer and didn’t respond to requests for comment on his tweets before publication deadline. Poilievre’s campaign team sent an email response.

“Aaron Gunn has been clear in recognizing the truly horrific events that transpired in residential schools, and any attempt to suggest otherwise is simply false,” the email said.

The email didn’t clarify if Gunn’s tweets reflect official policy, Poilievre’s views, or if the party intends to remove him as a candidate — nor if Poilievre thinks Gunn is able to represent First Nations as a significant demographic in the riding, given the anger around his comments. 

“We must acknowledge the terrible mistakes of our past and learn from our history while celebrating Canada as the greatest country on earth,” the Conservative campaign email said. 

Gunn is looking forward to repealing the “Liberals’ radical anti-resource laws” to quickly greenlight projects so First Nations and Canadians can bring home more powerful paycheques, it added. 

Gunn has issued a tweet on X that reiterated the campaign office’s message. However, he did not retract his statements that residential schools don’t constitute genocide or apologize for the anger his posts have generated.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and federal Green co-leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault have also issued public statements calling on Poilievre to pull Gunn, who they describe as “Trump like” and “anti-Indigenous.” 

Pierre Poilievre claims he has zero tolerance for candidates who act unacceptably,’” said Singh. “If that’s true, why is Aaron Gunn still on the ballot?”

Municipal leaders in the riding from Comox, Cumberland and Powell River have also reportedly begun to call for Gunn to be removed. 

Gunn, Poilievre photo op not an 'endorsement'

Gunn recently posted a photo of himself, Poilievre, Campbell River Mayor Kermit Dahl and We Wai Kai Chief Ronnie Chickite to his Facebook campaign page.

Chief Chickite said the photo isn’t an endorsement of Conservatives but also that he hasn’t yet raised the issue of Gunn’s past comments with him.  

Leaders must take every opportunity to meet with all political parties and leaders to ask questions, Chickite said in an email. 

“I’m not supporting any particular party as they all have different platforms,” he wrote, adding people often vote based on their work or business. 

“At the end of the day that’s how I must decide who may get my vote.” 

First Nations ‘unequivocally reject' Gunn

Many nations within the Island riding are angry over Gunn’s social media comments.

The tweets speak for themselves and are deeply troubling given thousands of residential school survivors across the country have courageously shared their truth, the Tla’amin Nation said in a statement to Canada’s National Observer. 

“Tla’amin Nation unequivocally rejects this candidate as an authority on what constitutes genocide. We stand in support of Tla’amin Residential School survivors,” the statement read. 

“Individuals who minimize or deny the harms of [residential schools] continue to rise to positions of influence — and, more concerning still, receive public support.”

Homalco Chief Darren Blaney, a residential school survivor and husband of the riding’s former NDP MP Rachel Blaney said Gunn’s tweets show why First Nations are calling on the federal government to create legislation to combat residential school denialism and misinformation. 

Diminishing survivors' experiences shows a lack of concern for what students and families suffered, he said, adding the legacy of those institutions continues today.

“So many came out of residential school sexually abused,” Blaney said. “So many friends I went to school with died pretty young; residential school is still killing them.” 

“All the people that have Aaron Gunn signs on their lawn should know his position on residential schools,” Blaney said. 

‘Namgis Hereditary Chief and elected Councillor Ernest Alfred said he supports the call to remove Gunn as a candidate. 

He’s made repeated efforts to contact Gunn to join an all-candidates debate in his community of Alert Bay, but has had no reply. Candidates from all other parties are attending.

“We are a very cooperative, respectful and concerned group of people who, I guess, are at odds with his views,” Alfred said.

The ‘Namgis have worked respectfully and cooperatively with different levels of government to develop their economy in line with their values, including the removal of open net pen fish farms, he said. 

“I don’t really think Mr. Gunn wants to come here and that’s probably based on his own shame,” he said. 

Gunn, a right-wing social media personality from Victoria with an extensive online following, was parachuted into the riding as the Conservative candidate. 

His last political bid, in 2021, was undone by his social media history when he was rejected as a candidate for the BC Liberal leadership race after executives cited diversity and reconciliation concerns. In addition to his residential school tweets, Gunn was heavily criticized for posts asserting the “gender pay gap doesn’t exist" and systemic racism is a "myth." Gunn is also critical of Canada's diversity hiring in the military, suggesting “apparently white males need not apply.” (Federal statistics show 70 per cent of Canadian military members are white men.) 

At the time, Gunn argued for the need for open debate, saying ‘it is difficult to see how any of these tweets expressed extreme or factually dubious opinions that fall outside mainstream Canadian political thought.”

Social media surge 

There’s a rising swell of social media posts from Indigenous and non-Indgenous voters in the northern Island riding calling out Gunn’s tweets, in some instances from Conservative supporters. 

Andrew Puglas Jr, a former director of the Conservative riding association, said Gunn’s role “as a politician should come with the responsibility of promoting understanding and compassion, not perpetuating prejudice.” 

Other Indigenous voters in the riding have posted that Gunn’s comments continue to re-inflict pain on residential school survivors and their descendants while perpetuating racism in younger generations. 

“I cannot believe that after everything we’ve learned and I experienced in high school that we are having these conversations again,” said voter  Lesley Assu, from the Haida and We Wai Kai nations living in Campbell River.

“I’m seeing this resurgence of men and women who are my age now grasping on to those [destructive] ideas. So, that's the harm. That’s what’s hurtful.”

Pierre Poilievre would remove Gunn as a candidate if he thought his statements were against party values, Assu said. But she has doubts it will happen. 

“I think that he should do that. But in all likelihood, Aaron Gunn is the representation of their values.”