N.B. election: Conservative candidate compares LGBTQ policy to residential schools

A Progressive Conservative candidate in New Brunswick’s election is facing calls to withdraw after she compared the province’s former policy on gender identity in schools with the residential school system.

Sherry Wilson, Tory candidate in the Albert-Riverview riding, was referencing the policy allowing teachers to use the preferred first names and pronouns of trans and non-binary students.

Claiming “parents rights,” the Progressive Conservative government under Premier Blaine Higgs modified that guidance in 2023, requiring that teachers get parental consent before they can use the preferred names of students under 16.

Wilson, in a Facebook post on Monday marking National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, said the residential school system isolated Indigenous children from their parents, traditional values and family culture.

She says isolating children from parents “must never be allowed to happen again in Canada,” in support of her party’s changes to the gender identity policy in schools.

In response, Pabineau First Nation Chief Terry Richardson called for Wilson to be removed as the Progressive Conservative candidate in the riding, located in the province’s southeast.

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Green Party deputy leader Megan Mitton called Wilson’s post “abhorrent, indefensible, and completely wrong,” and asked for her to apologize to Indigenous communities across the province and country.

The Progressive Conservative team did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Wilson’s Facebook post has been taken down.

In her Facebook post, Wilson doesn’t mention the gender identity policy by name, instead saying, “We must never put our teachers in the position where they have to hide important parts of a child’s development from their own parents!”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 1, 2024.

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