First Nations leaders are calling upon the Conservative Party of Canada to drop Aaron Gunn, candidate for North Island-Powell River, due to a series of tweets he made between 2019 and 2021.

More than 150,000 First Nation, Métis and Inuit children were taken out of their homes and forced to attend residential schools between the 1870s and 1997. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission called the residential school system “cultural genocide” in its final report released in 2015.

Gunn tweeted: “Why are the report authors (and now Trudeau) sensationalizing truly horrific events, that need to be examined honestly, with a loaded word like ‘genocide’ that does not remotely reflect the reality of what happened.”  

More tweets followed: 

• “There was no genocide. Stop lying to people and read a book. The Holocaust was a genocide. Get off Twitter and learn more about the world”
• “I understand that people have a misinformed view of history which they have reached following a steady and persistent attempt to discredit Canada’s past in order to undermine its institutions and future.”
• “Residential schools were asked for by Indigenous bands in Eastern Ontario when John A MacDonald was still a teenager, but hey, why let the truth get in the way of a good headline.”  

“ I think Mr. Gunn’s comments about Canadian Indian residential schools are absolutely appalling and utterly unacceptable for someone that is seeking public office. It shows me that he is completely untethered from the reality that First Nations have experienced in this country and completely absent from knowledge of what the government has done and spoken of. I believe it was in 2022 when the House of Commons spoke about what happened to First Nations people as genocide, and when the Pope of the Catholic church also spoke of it as genocide. For Mr. Gunn to just disregard these statements based upon reality of this country, it’s absolutely appalling.  There’s no way that I can envision anyone should be able to sit in public office with such blatant, racist perspectives,” explained Bob Chamberlain, a Powell River resident who served as the Union of BC Indian Chief’s Vice-President for 10 years and elected chief of the Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis [quick-wa-sut-uh-nook / hakwuh-meesh] First Nation for 14 years. 

The First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC) echoed this opinion in a press release issued on April 3:

“the FNLC is joining calls for the Conservative Party of Canada to drop Aaron Gunn, the candidate for North Island-Powell River, due to his horrific and offensive posts on X between 2019 and 2021 refuting that Indigenous people faced a genocide in Canada and that ‘residential schools were asked for by Indigenous bands.’ Such attitudes are extremely harmful and divisive and should not be held by those in public office.”

Terry Teegee, BC Regional Chief for the Assembly of First Nations, added “It’s really concerning that perhaps the Conservatives can’t work with First Nations peoples across this country, especially with a party that supports an individual of this type of view.” 

Gunn has not responded to Cortes Currents requests for comment.  

When he was rejected as a potential candidate of the BC Liberal party in 2021, because of his views, Gunn claimed he had been blindsided:

“At worst, it could be argued that one of the tweets was more terse than necessary. But it is difficult to see how any of these tweets expressed extreme or factually dubious opinions that fall outside mainstream Canadian political thought. Especially considering “genocide” is most commonly defined as “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group” – a rather serious accusation which, I believe, should only be used in those rare, extreme circumstances (such as the Holocaust, for example).” 

He also stated that Canada has, to a large degree, become terrified of open and honest debate.

In response to Chamberlain’s concerns, Conservative campaign spokesperson, Sam Lilly, emailed APTN News that “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.”

Lilly went on to quote a statement that Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre made to the Assembly of First Nations in 2024: 

“For decades, the residential school system removed children from the love and care of their families. It was a monstrous abuse of excessive governmental power that cut your children off from their cultures, languages, and traditions. In many cases, students were neglected and abused tragically. Too many young children never came home.”

“In 2008, the federal government under then Prime Minister Harper issued an apology and launched the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), but there is more work to be done. I know that Canada has no future without a strong future for the First Nations people.”

Bob Chamberlain: “When I first read the United Nations description of genocide, my immediate thought was that’s what happened to us here, dispossession of land, destruction of culture, language and traditions targeting children.

“I know the world is very aware of what happened to the Jewish people during the war and the atrocity that was. I can’t even fathom that experience, but our experience is nothing short of that, just on a longer time frame.” 

“I’ve seen statements from leaders of this country when it first began, that we have to rid the country of this Indian problem that we have to absorb every Indian into the body politic of Canada, that’s assimilation.” 

“When I think about the current criteria that the federal government has to be a status Indian, there’s something commonly referred to as the double mother clause, that means it’s still an assimilation bill. It’s still a way to rid the country of the Indian problem and absorb us into the body politic of Canada.”

“When we talk about colonization, people picture people with funny hats and buckles on their shoes and that kind of thing, but we still have the latent dispossession of lands of First Nation people. We still have the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal talking about how the government underfunded First Nation children specifically. We have Supreme Court law that has said the land, the title has not been ceded. We have the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action and that report was based upon the horrific experience of our peoples, including my mother and all of my uncles and my aunties and my distant family. It happened everywhere across this country, and it was a concerted effort. If that’s not Holocaust, what is?”

“When I think about South Africa and Apartheid, I don’t think Canadians know that they came up here and studied the reserve system  and modeled apartheid based upon the reserve system here in Canada. These are the things that you don’t learn in high school.” 

“I’ve seen comments from people like Aaron Gunn that there is not one verified child grave found at a residential school. Well, when you use the most current technology ground penetrating radar, then you find a disturbance that it’s designed to find. You find them at every residential school across this country, what else can they be when there’s been testimony at the TRC about children needing to bury other Indian children at the schools.” 

“I think the time of building awareness has passed for the majority, and it’s time for the government to take the strong leadership to address the past, to make fundamental changes today so that we can start to identify and unravel the systemic racism that is Canada.” 

“We have the worst housing; We have the shortest lifespan; We have the most abysmal health records; We have over-incarceration; We have most children in care. Either we are the most unluckiest people on the planet, or this is a very clear demonstration of what systemic racism looks like at a national level.” 

“The community I was Chief of went 10 years with a ‘do not consume’ order for water. Every house was condemned with level one mold. This is not uncommon across the country.” 

“After COVID when they’re trying to figure out a way to jumpstart the economy, I was messaging the government ‘deal with the First Nation housing crisis. It’s in every corner of the country. It would help the economy.’ Nobody picked it up.”  

“Even today, the political dialogue for this election is all predicated on what Donald Trump is doing. And yet what happens to that small issue called human rights for First Nations in this country? It’s being forgotten.” 

“I don’t say that they shouldn’t be paying attention to what’s going on to the economy at large, but we certainly can’t have people running to be a member of Parliament who absolutely are racist and actively deny and publicly deny the genocide or that the residential school was part of that.  There’s not a country in the world that doesn’t have racism. I know that, but  I can’t understand how the Conservative Party of Canada would approve this candidate with such well-known public statements.”

Cortes Currents: Have you heard any response from the Conservative party? 

Bob Chamberlain: “No, I haven’t. I only read the Indigenous page on the CBC website. There’s a quote, but it’s just a boilerplate response.” 

The CBC article quoted ‘a campaign spokesperson’ for the Conservative Party whose statements largely mirror those made to the APTN News but adds, “Mr. Gunn, along with great candidates such as former Haisla Chief Ellis Ross, is looking forward to repealing the Liberals radical anti-resource laws to quickly green-light good projects so First Nations and all Canadians bring home more powerful paycheques.”

In the past few days, the Conservative Party ousted four of its candidates, for various reasons.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillips, of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, asks, “I am deeply deeply disappointed Pierre Poilievre hasn’t removed Aaron Gunn from the ballot, from his candidacy on the North Island. It’s absolutely reprehensible that he hasn’t shown the leadership to do so. He’s done similar things in other parts of the country, why not here?”

Tanille Johnson, the NDP candidate for North Island Powell River, told CBC News, “I believe that the Conservatives should explain why they feel this type of candidate is best suited for not only our riding of North Island-Powell River, but for our federal government.”

Bob Chamberlain:  “I’m really hoping that at the end of this effort to expose this racist candidate, that the party realizes the liability that he is. In this riding there’s probably close to 20 Nations. There’s no way that he can, with his position, his starting point ever represent us adequately and he certainly won’t be an ally in government.” 

Links of Interest:

• Articles about, or mentioning, the 2025 election
• Articles about, or mentioning, Aaron Gunn
• Articles about, or mentioning Aaron Gunn’s tweets
• Articles about, or mentioning, the Conservative Party

Top image credit: Photo of Aaron Gunn from Conservative Party website, imposed on Roy L Hales picture of boats in Campbell River

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